


Tierra de nadie

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Crimes & Criminals, Drug Use, Drugs, Gun Violence, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Organized Crime, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:41:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: Running away should be done with his things packed in a bag, taking a night bus to somewhere far away, and never looking back. Never coming back. Just disappearing.If Edi has a talent for something, it's being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and getting involved with the wrong sort of people.
Relationships: Edinson Cavani/Paolo Guerrero, Martín Cáceres/Edinson Cavani
Comments: 48
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ibarbourou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibarbourou/gifts).



> The idea of this fic is really old. It dates back to 2011, and I can still see myself writing down notes for this in a small tearoom in France. I discarded it then, and later created something else called The Thin Ice. That's why there are similarities, but this is a different story. Still, it's a very vintage fic.
> 
> It's dedicated to my awesome fandom friend @dame5, without who this fic would never see the light of the world, and it would forever stay in my old notebook.

He should have stopped doing this five years ago.

Sometimes, it feels almost pathetic. He’s not really running away. Running away should be done with his things packed in a bag, taking a night bus to somewhere far away, and never looking back. Never coming back. Just disappearing.

Sometimes, he daydreams about it, as stupid as it is, especially for someone his age. He’s not a child anymore, the neighborhood wouldn’t look for him, the police wouldn’t be interested. They’d know straight away that he wanted to leave, and they wouldn’t care, since he can obviously do whatever he wants to do. Sometimes, he suspects that he wouldn’t really need to climb out of the window anymore. Maybe no one would care at this point. Maybe everyone knows he’s gone now, and they simply don’t mention it because they don’t care. Or they are gone, and he’s running away from no one now.

A group of people is standing under the overpass, hidden in the shadow of one of the pillars. Right when they turn to him, Edi knows that he’s not supposed to be here.

Wrong time, wrong place.

He starts to run before they make a move. Decisions are taken slower in a group, and it gives him a few seconds. The road is empty, but the cars are the smallest concern he has now. He jumps over the guardrail, but in the dark, he estimates the steepness of the slope completely wrong. Also, it’s not grass and dirt, but gravel. His feet slip and he takes an unintentional shortcut, rolling down the slope. His side hits something when he lands, a piece of rubble that piles at the foot of the slope, and he feels it slash through his skin, although the pain is greatly diminished by the adrenaline.

He can hear the steps on the gravel, and the voices. They are most likely younger than Edi, one of the group of troublemakers loitering around and doing petty crimes. It’s not as much about them disliking him stepping into their territory as it is about them having fun.

“Fuck off, all of you!” someone shouts.

The voice isn’t familiar, but his face is, and Edi realizes where he is and who they are dealing with, and he doesn’t know if it doesn’t make the situation even worse. Paolo lives in an old van on the outskirts of the town, apparently more for the reason that he doesn’t want to be near people than him not being able to afford anything better. Not like people want to get near him either. From what Edi’s heard or seen whenever he took a shortcut through the outskirts, Paolo has a quick temper and his own idea of what is or isn’t legal.

“Who are you to tell us what to do?” one of the boys asks with the confidence of someone who has four of their friends behind their back. They are a pack against a lone wolf.

Paolo is unimpressed. “I don’t care what you fuckers do, but you won’t do it here.”

Edi notices that apart from being angry as hell, Paolo is also probably drunk. Definitely not an advantage in this situation.

“Because you’re going to stop us, right?”

Paolo pulls out a gun and aims it at the leader of the group, whom he unmistakably identifies.

“I fucking said not here!”

The boys scatter like a herd of frightened sheep. Edi would run too, but his body refuses to move. He feels the sharp pieces of gravel digging in his skin. He tries to get up, but all he manages is to turn on his back. He lifts his eyes to Paolo. He wants to say something, but doesn’t know what, and he still feels like he couldn’t get a word past his lips.

The lights of a car driving by on the overpass illuminate the scene for a brief moment, and in that moment, Paolo starts to laugh.

“Fuck me!” he says and lowers the hand with the gun. “Is the kindergarten having a spring break and you have nothing better to do?”

He offers Edi his hand. “So? Can you get up?”

Edi takes his hand and tries to get up. A sharp pain shoots up his left side. He cries out, lets go of Paolo’s hand and falls back on the gravel.

Paolo sighs and leans down. “Okay, hold on,” he says and takes a firm hold of him, helping him to his feet.

Edi throws an arm around Paolo’s shoulders, leaning into him with the uninjured side. He doesn’t really know why he doesn’t panic, why he acts like he’s known Paolo for years, even though all he knows are the stories that are most likely untrue. Probably it’s the way Paolo acts, and he just mirrors him. Or he’s simply resigned himself to the situation. He started to play this game on accident, and he doesn’t know how it should continue. So he just lets it take its own course.

~ ~ ~

Paolo’s van is standing on an empty piece of dirt surrounded by a wire fence. Nobody knows who the property belongs to, but it sure as hell doesn’t belong to Paolo. The town’s major has tried to evict him numerous times, but for some reason, his effort has been in vain as of date.

“Stay here,” Paolo says and sits Edi on the stairs of the van.

Warm light pours out of the door and the gap between the curtains in the van’s windows. Edi hears him rummaging there, and there’s water running. He doesn’t get where the electricity and running water comes from… but he also suspects it’s not like Paolo pays the bills.

Paolo walks out with a wet towel, leaving the door open just enough to provide them with light. Then he reaches for Edi’s shirt where it’s already stained with blood. The fabric of the shirt is stuck to the wound and Edi hisses with pain.

“Man up,” Paolo mumbles. “When you stick your nose where you’re not supposed to stick it, you better be ready to have it broken.”

Edi bites down on his lower lip when Paolo peels off the rest of the fabric. “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asks Paolo.

“I don’t kill little boys.”

It makes Edi think about how old he actually looks, because Paolo can’t be that much older.

“Why should I kill you, it doesn’t make sense,” Paolo adds and dabs on the wound with the wet towel. “Those fuckers are more likely to kill you than me. They’re looking for unnecessary trouble, I’m trying to stay out of it.”

“And still the whole town knows who you are,” Edi notes.

“The town knows shit,” Paolo says calmly. “What’s your name?”

“Edi.”

“You’re not five years old,” Paolo makes a face. “If you want to grow up, call yourself by a grown up name.”

“Edinson.”

“Better,” Paolo says. “You should have someone look at this, Edinson. It looks quite nasty.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” Edi mumbles.

“Sure, with some stitches,” Paolo says and gets up. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Paolo rolls his eyes. “To the hospital, where else, you idiot.”

For someone who lives in an old van on someone’s abandoned property, Paolo’s car doesn’t look nearly that cheap. He probably invested more in it than in any other aspect of his life.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Edi objects.

Paolo raises his brows. “Because?”

“You’re drunk.”

Paolo laughs. “You clearly haven’t seen me drunk. Get in.”

Paolo’s attitude is annoying and comforting at the same time, it’s hard to choose. As crazy as it sounds, what he’s saying is reasonable. Edi doesn’t feel like dying in a car accident, but he also doesn’t feel like dying of tetanus. And there’s no better way to get to the hospital at this hour.

“Why are you doing this?” Edi asks when they get on the road.

“To be honest, I’ve been asking myself that question for about half an hour now,” Paolo says. “Maybe I’m in a charitable mood tonight.”

“You’re not in that mood often, are you?”

“No, so you better not wander around the wrong places at night,” Paolo says. “You’re too young and too stupid for that.”

Edi scoffs, only the pain in his side stopping him from turning to glare at Paolo. “I’m not that young,” he says. “And you don’t know me at all. Also, I don’t think you’re fit to tell me how to follow the right path.”

Paolo sighs deeply. “Look, maybe I’m a bit drunk and the whole town knows who I am, in your words, but I’m not the one who needs stitches because they were pretending to be what they are not.”

“I wasn’t pretending anything.”

“Then why aren’t you in your bed, sleeping with a plushie like the kid you are?”

“Maybe I would rather be.”

The neon sign of the hospital appears in front of them. Paolo parks right on the spot where a sign tells everyone not to park there not to block the emergency cars’ way. Edi looks at him.

“Well, that’s it,” Paolo says and shrugs. “I’m not going to hold your hand or anything. Call your ma, I’m out.”

Edi turns to him. “Thank you.”

Paolo smirks and watches him struggle to get out of the car. When Edi turns back from the entrance, an ambulance honks loudly. Paolo shows the driver the middle finger and drives out of the parking lot at a mad speed.

~ ~ ~

The first time Edi has ever seen Paolo’s van was on the way to church. Paradoxically, the property it stands on is right in the way, and everyone from this part of the town has to pass through it, unless they want to take a much longer route.

Sometimes, the van looked almost abandoned, and it was easy for everyone to ignore it. Sometimes, Paolo would loiter around, like he was enjoying the whispers and discreet spitting on the ground from the people talking about him.

When Edi passes through that part of the town now, in plain daylight, it almost seems to him like the whole thing wasn’t real. The freshly healed wound on his side tells him otherwise, but other than that, it feels like a dream one would have after a stressful day.

“Hey!” he hears from behind the wired fence.

Paolo is standing on the top step of his van, like he is waiting for him.

“Come here!” he calls.

Edi is about to just pretend he didn’t hear him, or dismiss him with the pretense of being late, when he notices that something is not quite right. Paolo looks like something has run him over a couple times, and he’s actually holding onto the door frame.

“Why?”

“To help thy neighbor,” Paolo says. “Or because you owe me for the last time.”

Something is telling Edi that he will regret that decision, but he leaves the path and crawls through the hole in the fence. By the time he gets to the van, Paolo has already disappeared inside.

The inside of his van is the strangest thing Edi has ever seen. It’s something between an old gypsy wagon, an opium den, and a tribal king’s home. There are still some things he would not expect to find there - a rug shaped like a snake, embroidered pillows, a guitar, a picture of the Virgin Mary, and an old porcelain tea pot.

Paolo makes himself comfortable on the bed with an embroidered cover that looks more like it belongs to an elderly lady than someone like him. There’s a bandage on his shoulder, but it looks like someone did it in the dark and in a hurry.

“What happened to you?” Edi asks.

“A mosquito bit me,” Paolo makes a face.

Edi returns the stare. Paolo treating him like a stupid child offends him more that it probably should. “Must have been a big one.”

“Yeah, it was.”

He’s not able to tell if the wound under the bandage is a gunshot one or rather a result of a knife brawl, and he prefers not to know.

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“Um… wait, sure, why didn’t I think of going there?” Paolo scratches his head with the healthy hand. “Oh, yeah, you need certain things to go there. Like insurance. Too bad, I’m sure they have fancy painkillers. Could use some right now.”

Edi rolls his eyes. He’s always kind of supposed Paolo didn’t really care about papers and laws, but he thought it only concerned things like not having a permission for his van to stand where he fancied it to stand, and pissing off the town’s major. Now he’s not entirely sure if Paolo is even in this country legally.

Paolo looks at him for a long while, almost like he’s assessing him. “Can you keep a secret?” he asks then.

Edi nods without hesitating. He’s never really guarded anyone’s secret, but he likes to keep things to himself. Or… he rather doesn’t really have who to tell.

“The shelf above the window, the metal box.”

Edi reaches up for the box and pulls it down. He opens it and looks at Paolo. “It’s not what I think it is, is it?”

“Take it this way,” Paolo says. “Some people have an emergency bottle of tequila in their drawer, or an emergency bottle of diazepam. I have an emergency gram of heroin. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have the emergency bottle as well.”

“I thought this was more likely to kill you than anything else.”

“Yeah, but not immediately. And what interests me the most right now is that it’s a better painkiller than the over-the-counter stuff I could get.”

Edi sighs. He tells himself that if Paolo wants to do this to himself, it’s his own decision after all.

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Add water and lemon juice.”

Edi just stares at him. “What?”

“It won’t dissolve in water alone.”

Edi thinks that this is a piece of information he would probably not be given during Chemistry lessons, ever. Then he grabs a knife and a quite withered lemon from the bowl on the table, and slices it in half. He carefully opens the plastic bag and looks at Paolo questioningly.

“One fifth of it.”

Edi splits the dose in five parts using the handle of a spoon, as equally as he can. He mixes one part with the water and lemon juice.

“Heat it up,” Paolo says and throws a lighter at him.

As he’s holding the spoon above the flame, Edi notices Paolo’s amused smirk. He gets the next step without clues and pulls the liquid into the syringe, then looks at Paolo again.

“And?”

“I can’t move my arm,” Paolo says like Edi is an idiot. “You’ll have to do it.”

Edi just blinks. “You have the other hand,” he objects.

Paolo rolls his eyes. “With that one I’d probably stab myself in the eye. I’m not a junkie, I don’t do this every day. So shut up and come here.”

Edi creeps closer. “I don’t know how to do it,” he says.

“Ever had your blood drawn?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s the same thing, just kind of reversed.”

Edi grabs Paolo’s arm and turns the inner side to him. “You should cut down on the tattoos,” he mumbles.

Paolo smirks. “You should cut down on your smart ass remarks.”

He finds a vein much more easily than if he ever wanted to find it on himself. He adjusts the grip on the syringe a little, to what he hopes is at least a little bit correct. Then he shakes his head.

“I can’t.”

Paolo sighs deeply. He moves his arm a little, just enough to reach Edi. Then he grabs his wrist and pulls slightly. Edi gasps as the needle slides in.

Paolo smiles. “Good boy,” he says and touches Edi’s face.

Edi jerks his head back and gets up. He cleans the table hastily, throws the box back on the shelf and heads to the door.

“Hey!” Paolo says.

Edi turns to him.

“Not like I can force you, or promise you eternal gratitude if you agree, but… could you stop by from time to time?”

It’s exactly the moment Edi should say no, close the door and run as fast as he can. But something about this is just as addicting as the thing in the metal box.

“What does ‘from time to time’ mean?” he asks instead.


	2. Chapter 2

The suburbs have a strange, ugly beauty to them. By day, in the sunlight, the dirt, cracked walls and chipped paint look sad and desolate. But once the pink veil of sunset covers them, they look almost dreamy and picturesque. It’s much harder to hate them then.

Even Paolo’s van changes into an almost magical place with the evening light, like a fairy or a gypsy princess could live there. Edi walks in and bangs the door of the van shut with more force than he intended, like he wants to crush that aura.

“Who pissed you off?” Paolo asks.

“Not your business,” Edi mumbles.

He grabs the box and throws it on the table. He realizes how natural the movements have become. He’s not even thinking about what he’s doing anymore.

“Could you focus a little bit now?” Paolo asks. “I really don’t need you to accidentally kill me, okay?”

“I’m focused.”

“Fine.”

He sits on the edge of the bed and grabs Paolo’s hand. He doesn’t mind it anymore. It even fascinates him, watching Paolo’s face, the way it changes.

“No offense, but you spend more time here than home,” Paolo notes.

He is, of course, painfully right.

He doesn’t even know why he came back after the first time. At first, he would stop by in the afternoon, after school. Taking longer wasn’t that suspicious, and the last thing he would want his mother to know was where he was spending the time, and what he was doing there. But with time, Paolo’s van has become some sort of a refuge. He couldn’t hear the arguments here. He could breathe just fine here. It didn’t feel like he was suffocating, it didn’t feel like walking in a minefield here.

Was spending time with Paolo dangerous? Probably. But it was the good kind of dangerous. He could somewhat predict the consequences, the dynamics. As crazy as he was, Paolo was predictable.

Talking to him was also different from talking to anyone else Edi knew. Paolo didn’t sugarcoat anything. When he was fed up with Edi’s presence, he told him to fuck off. When he wanted something, he’d simply ask for it, but never beg. Edi could give in or tell him to go fuck himself and it wouldn’t change a thing between them. And he could tell him anything and be sure that Paolo wouldn’t wreck his brain over it.

“You know, maybe I was wrong that night,” Paolo says.

“About what?”

“You,” Paolo smirks. “On the outside, you’re this nice, shy boy with a strict moral code. But underneath it all, there’s actually a whole different person. And I think that if you stopped acting like teacher’s pet, altar boy or whatnot, you could actually make it very far.”

Edi laughs shortly. Paolo’s fingers are dancing on his forearm lightly. As long as they were talking, he didn’t even notice, but once there’s silence between them, he realizes the touch and lowers his eyes, watching Paolo’s fingers draw abstract shapes on his skin. He doesn’t move. It’s not uncomfortable. On the contrary, it’s strangely comforting.

In a way, he’s already addicted to this. It’s a part of his days now, he can’t be without it for too long. And he knows that it’s changing him, that he’s falling deeper and deeper in the spiral of this. While before, he would back off whenever Paolo touched him, now it’s enough for him to raise his hand and Edi will lean into the touch without thinking.

“Edinson?” Paolo says suddenly. “I need something from you.”

Edi looks at him questioningly. “I suppose it’s something I won’t like and nobody must find out about it.”

“Exactly,” Paolo chuckles.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you guess?”

Edi frowns. Then he realizes that he took the last fifth from the plastic bag a few moments ago.

“You’re not being serious,” he says.

“I’ll tell you where to go.”

“I suppose it won’t be a supermarket.”

“No. But I think that if you weren’t scared of a gun, this will be barely a challenge.”

Edi doesn’t have the heart to correct this wrong assumption. He’s scared of everything, even his own shadow. And the gun scared him so much that his mind was completely blank and his body paralyzed.

“I can try.”

~ ~ ~

He doesn’t know this part of the city. It’s on the completely opposite side of the suburbs he knows. He looks around and unwittingly starts walking faster. His mind is screaming at him that he’s gone completely mad, but he almost can’t hear over the loud music playing in all the cars passing him by. A beer bottle falls on the pavement a step away from him, out of nowhere, and shatters into pieces.

The bar doesn’t look any different from the other places on that street, but it _feels_ different. There are no small groups of people standing outside or even strolling past. There’s a single man standing at the door, smoking a cigarette and watching the street.

When Edi comes to him, he gives him one look and blinks in surprise.

“Are you lost or what?” he asks. “Sunday school is a different way.”

“Paolo sent me.”

The man blinks again, but then gives him a quick nod. The fact that Paolo’s name alone gets him a free pass is slightly disturbing.

The place is surprisingly quiet. The music is not as loud as in other clubs, where people have to scream at each other if they want to talk. There’s some music playing here, but nobody seems to be listening to it, it’s just a white noise. No one is dancing either. The scantily dressed waitresses are walking around slowly, like they are too bored with their job, and the bartender looks like he only cleans the glasses to make it look like he’s doing something. Edi is quite sure that if the cops appeared outside the place, everyone would start playing their roles enthusiastically. The bartender would turn the music up and start mixing cocktails, and a certain amount of people would jump up from the leather padded boxes and start dancing.

“Are you looking for something?” the bartender asks. He could be about Edi’s age, tall and lanky, with a diamond earring, with a tone that sounds like he feels more important than he actually is.

“Arévalo.”

The bartender raises his brows, but then walks around the bar and heads towards one of the padded boxes. He taps a man sitting there in the company of other six people on the shoulder.

“Arévalo, there’s a kid looking for you.”

The man turns around, and the first thing Edi’s brain tells him is that he definitely doesn’t want to talk to this man, no, thank you, abort the mission. It’s only that stupid defense mechanism of his that always freezes his body for long seconds that stops him from running away.

“You’re looking for me?” Arévalo asks, looking Edi up and down like he’s a snake measuring his prey.

“Paolo sent me,” Edi repeats the phrase.

Arévalo nods. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Edi follows him to the rickety metal staircase behind the bar. People around occasionally glance at him. He clearly doesn’t belong there, and not because he’s too young - actually, he’s quite sure that some of the girls in dresses that are too short and with hair that is too bleached are even younger than him. But his jeans and dirty trainers and checked shirt don’t belong there.

The “upstairs” is a tiny office with furniture pieces that don’t fit together. Edi pulls out the money from his pocket and puts them on the desk. Arévalo keeps looking at him for a while.

“Paolo is a bastard, and you have a damn lot of courage if you agreed to do this,” he says then.

Edi shrugs. Arévalo may be right, but in a way, it doesn’t feel that scary. It is actually not much different from going to the supermarket.

Arévalo hands him a tiny envelope made of waxed paper. “Take it and get lost,” he says.

Edi puts the envelope in his pocket and turns around. He can’t wait to be out of there. Arévalo doesn’t really have to tell him.

When he walks out, the man at the entrance looks at him once again, but doesn’t say anything. Edi shivers. The air in the bar was too hot, but the night air is cool and he can smell the rain in it. He almost runs through the street this time, deciding that the less he sees there, the better. He gets on the night bus, buys a ticket and curls up on the seat at the window. Only then his mind asks him what the hell he is doing.

The more he twists and turns it in his head as he looks out of the rain-streaked window, the more he realizes that he does it because he finally has some vague feeling of belonging. He misses intimacy, longs for some kind of a relationship. He needs to have a link to someone. And he needs it so desperately that he doesn’t care it’s Paolo, and that the link is only the metal box above the window, and the fact that he does things for him that nobody in their sound mind would do. He needs to feel important, needed, attractive, everything he is not. And Paolo offers him that illusion. Because Edi does feel important when Paolo gives him the half-sarcastic compliments, and the way he touches him sometimes does make him feel attractive. It’s strange, because he knows that even if Paolo wanted to take it further, which Edi highly doubts he would, he wouldn’t allow it. But those slightly provocative touches feel good. It’s a bit like his own drug that’s keeping him alive. Suddenly it’s easier to go through the day, the constant tension at home, when he knows that at the end of the day, he will get his small consolation prize, that for half an hour he will feel important and someone will touch him at least a bit gently.

~ ~ ~

The periphery is quiet that night. Whoever doesn’t want to sleep is gone, looking for amusement the suburbs can’t offer them, and the rest of the people are asleep, or watching TV and drinking beer in the warmth of their homes.

Paolo lifts his head when Edi slips inside the van. Edi reaches in his pocket and hands him the envelope. Paolo laughs.

“I see I wasn’t wrong about you,” he says. “Did Arévalo say anything?”

“That you were a bastard.”

“Nothing new, then,” Paolo sighs.

“What was that place?” Edi asks and sits on the bed. “I mean, the place that tries to look like a bar, but isn’t.”

Paolo sighs and pushes himself up. The wound on his shoulder looks much better than before, but he still tries not to move it too much.

“Well, it’s just what you said it was,” he says.

“Why would you need to run a bar to sell drugs?”

Paolo smirks. “Are you writing a dissertation or what?”

“No, I’m just curious.”

“You’re curious about the wrong things,” Paolo comments dryly. “How do I put it… every company needs an office, right?”

“Why a bar?”

“Because people come in and out of bars all the time, and it looks legit. If they were making deals at your house instead, would your neighbors not notice?”

Edi wishes he could tell him they would, but after his experience, he’s not so sure. His neighbors have been turning a blind eye to so many things that drug deals would probably be okay in their books as well.

“Is it just that?” he asks. “I mean… Is it just drugs? Or…”

“It’s never just one thing. It’s like a chain reaction, I would say,” Paolo says. “Different people, different businesses, different problems. Better forget everything you saw and heard there.”

Edi wishes he could, but truth is that every single detail is burned into his memory, and he’s not sure if he will ever be able to get it out.

~ ~ ~

The warm light of the desk lamp is creating a deserted island where it’s just Edi and his Economy textbook. He just wishes he could isolate himself from the sounds coming from behind the door of his room. With another sound of breaking porcelain, he closes the book, gets up, puts on a jacket and hides the book under it. Then he opens the window and slips out quietly.

Strange silence reigns over the suburbs, as it always does during rainy days and nights. The windows are lit, but any sound from behind them is lost in the rain and wind.

He knocks on the door of Paolo’s van and quietly opens it. Paolo looks at him and throws the cigarette into the ashtray conveniently laid on the floor next to the bed.

“You again?” he sighs.

“Would you mind if I revised here?” Edi asks.

Paolo rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

Edi takes off his jacket and throws it on the chair, because there’s nothing like a coat hanger in there. Then he sits on the snake rug with his back leaning over the side of the bed and opens the book. Paolo peeks over his shoulder, makes a face, and lights another cigarette, staring at the ceiling.

“One day, you’ll set yourself on fire like this, you know that?” Edi notes.

“Shut up and read.”

“Can I say it out loud?” Edi asks. “I remember better if I hear myself saying it.”

Paolo rubs his eyes. “Go ahead. When I’m fed up with it, I’ll kick you out.”

“Market failure is a situation in which the market, from the societal point of view, doesn’t optimally allocate goods and services, which include… transmission of information via prices, stimulation of economic activities, and…” He looks at the page. “Distributing income to subjects. Distributing income…”

“Can I ask you a question?” Paolo interrupts him.

“What question?”

“Why are you learning this bullshit?”

Edi looks at him exasperatedly.

“Okay, I didn’t say anything.”

Edi returns to the book. “Transmission of information via prices, stimulation of economic activities, and… and…” 

“Distributing income to subjects was the third bullshit,” sounds from behind his back.

“Give me your brain, you don’t have any use for it!” Edi whines.

“I do, I just use it for better things than market failure. The market failed a long time ago, even I know that,” Paolo shrugs.

A sharp knock on the door interrupts him. Paolo gets up carefully and walks to the door. A man is standing on the last step.

“Lugano said…” he starts.

Paolo promptly cuts him off. “Not here.”

The man pokes his head inside the van and looks at Edi. He looks very confused.

“Have you opened a library or what?”

“Fuck off,” Paolo growls and pushes him out. He bangs the door of the van behind him.

There’s the sound of car engine, and then silence. Edi gets up from the floor. Being here alone is strange. It’s almost like being left alone in a cave with treasure, except there’s no treasure he wouldn’t already know. No secrets to discover. It’s like Paolo has no secrets, or his secrets are damn well hidden. There is not a single thing that would hint at his past, either. And given the heterogeneity of everything around, maybe half of the things are not even originally Paolo’s.

He kicks off his shoes and lies on the bed. The rain is still pouring outside, the drops hitting the roof of the van creating a steady beat. All the time he’s been asking himself how Paolo could live like this, but now he almost envies him.

~ ~ ~

He wakes up when Paolo shakes him. Pale light is pouring in through the windows.

“I don’t really know when school is supposed to start, because I never made it that far, but you should probably get up,” Paolo says.

“You were gone all night?” Edi asks.

“Obviously,” Paolo growls. “Otherwise you wouldn’t still be in my bed.”

He picks up the book off the floor and throws it at Edi. He looks tired and annoyed. Edi almost feels guilty, because he’s probably gotten the best sleep in ages.

“Before you go…” Paolo says and nods towards the metal box.

“You looked quite fine last night,” Edi says. “You could as well do it yourself already.”

Paolo smirks. “I think you’re a better nurse.”

“Or not do it all.”

“As I see, that’s the only option,” Paolo says, looking at the last bit of the powder. “Better enjoy the last time.”

“As if I enjoyed any of this.”

He throws the empty envelope in the thrash and washes his hands. “Enough of that.”

Paolo just smirks. “That’s easy to say.”

“You think you can’t?”

“I can. As long as it’s only my body that’s addicted to it, and not my brain, it’s fine. I’ll feel like shit for a while, but that’s all,” he says and looks at Edi. “So I would appreciate it if you left me alone for some time.”

“Isn’t that even more of a reason to keep an eye on you?”

“Touching,” Paolo smirks. “But no, thanks. I won’t die, don’t worry.”

Edi would insist more, but he’s afraid of giving himself away. Paolo is not stupid. He’s probably already guessed that it’s not entirely about him. It’s about Edi losing his refuge, too. So he just nods and reaches for the handle.

“Don’t forget to optimally allocate goods and services,” Paolo calls after him. “Wouldn’t want the market to fail even more.”


	3. Chapter 3

He starts missing his safe place sooner than he would like.

He would take the shortest way to Paolo’s van if it wasn’t for Paolo’s request that doesn’t have any specific time limit. He takes the bus to the center instead, just to be the furthest away from everything. As if distance could help. When he gets off at a random stop, he doesn’t feel any better.

Minutes after he gets off the bus, it starts to rain. Just his luck.

He realizes that he’s not far away from the bar Paolo had sent him to once, but he’s definitely not going to look for shelter there. He wouldn’t look for shelter there even if meteorites were falling from the sky.

There is a small empty space lodged between two buildings. A couple old tires are piled up on one side, and some metal junk on the other, but other than that, it’s just dirt that’s turning into mud quickly. At the back of the backyard, there is a door and a small roof with an automatic light above it.

It looks by far like the kindest place to be right now.

He crosses the yard and stands under the roof, watching the rain hit the empty road. It doesn’t look like it’s about to stop any time soon.

“Hey!” someone says behind his back, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

When he turns around, the door is open and a boy about his age is looking at him. There’s a little bit of suspicion and a whole lot of curiosity in that look, and Edi feels an irresistible urge to hide from it. He tucks his head into his shoulder, trying to hide at least the side where pain is still pulsing in his cheekbone.

“Are you trying to drown yourself there, or what?” the boy asks.

“You can’t drown in the rain,” Edi says.

“You can drown in a spoon of water,” the boy says calmly. “Why not in the rain?”

“Because it’s scientifically impossible.”

“Okay. Dying of pneumonia is scientifically possible enough for you to come inside?”

Edi makes a step back. The water running down the edge of the roof unmistakably finds its way under the collar of his jacket. “Why?”

“Well, you’re already here, so why not?” the boy shrugs. “I don’t want to murder you, so if you don’t want to murder me, we’re good.”

The place looks like a garage that is trying to pretend to be a car service. It couldn’t allocate more than two cars at a time, and there is only one at the moment. Given that there is no one else working in there than the boy, it makes perfect sense.

The boy throws a towel at him and grabs a bottle of beer from the table. His hair is pulled up in a messy bun. Edi catches himself trying to guess how long it is. Definitely longer than his.

“I’m Martín,” he says. “You?”

“Edinson.”

Martín almost spits out the drink. “Sorry, but… what the hell were your parents smoking?”

Edi smiles, because it’s clear that Martín doesn’t mean to insult him. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid to ask.”

He throws the towel over his hair and squeezes the water out. Then he looks at the car. It looks almost new, and it’s actually too nice for this place. Someone who can afford to buy a car like this can surely afford a better car service.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Martín says calmly. “It’s absolutely fine.”

“Then why…” Edi starts, and then it hits him and he has to sit on the table.

“Yeah,” Martín grins. “I hope you didn’t think I was such a good employee that I would be repairing cars at one in the morning.”

“It’s stolen,” Edi states.

“Yep.”

“Did you steal it?”

“Nope,” Martín says. “Anything else you need to know? Ask away, I’m an open book.”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Edi notes.

“Why, you’re not a cop,” Martín shrugs.

“How do you know I’m not?”

Martín smirks and walks closer. Then he touches Edi’s face. “Well, I suppose if you were a cop, you’d be busy arresting the one that did this to you,” he says. “Not catching your death outside in the rain. But maybe the police methods have changed.”

He turns away just a fraction of second before it gets too much and makes Edi want to run away. He also doesn’t come back to it.

“Some people need to take apart, or respray, cars they got not quite… legally,” he explains. “It pays well.”

“For you or them?”

“Both,” Martín says. “I suppose better for them, but I’m not complaining.”

Edi watches him dig under the dashboard. Whatever he’s looking for, it seems that the car radio is bothering him a great deal. The way he rips out the wires makes Edi cringe.

“Why do you do that?” he asks. “You’ll destroy it like this.”

Martín glares at him. “I do what I do,” he says. “And no one needs it anyway. They’re paying for the parts they need, not the rest.”

“It could still function if you did it right,” Edi mumbles. “Like this, it goes to waste.”

Martín stops and looks at him. Edi can literally see the mischievous flame light up in his eyes.

“Come here,” he says.

“What?”

“Come. It’s yours,” he says and steps away. “Unless you’re all talk and no action.”

Edi takes the screwdriver Martín hands him and gives him one last look to make sure he means it.

“Go ahead,” Martín smirks. “After all, it’s not _my_ car.”

It’s been quite some time since he’s last done this, but it’s like riding a bicycle. One can never really forget it. Martín is looking over his shoulder, his chin practically nudging Edi’s shoulder. Edi pauses and looks at him.

“What?” Martín grins, and something in his face reminds Edi of a lizard, that curious and mischievous look it has right before its tongue darts out and catches a fly.

“You’re making me nervous,” Edi says.

“Good,” Martín says calmly. “Where did you learn this?”

“Nowhere. I mean, not at any school. It’s just a hobby.”

“Just a hobby? You should do it for a living.”

Edi makes a face. That’s exactly what he’s been hearing at home, all the time. Somehow, from Martín it doesn’t sound that bad. It sounds like something he would even consider, if he weren’t so damn stubborn.

“What do you do for a living, then?”

“I study management.”

For a moment, he expects Martín to tell him it’s bullshit, but Martín doesn’t comment on it at all. He just watches him curiously when he hands him the radio.

“I might keep you,” he laughs. “Even with that management. You could manage my stuff. Because I can’t even manage myself.”

Somehow, Edi knows that it’s true. There’s something incredibly chaotic about Martín. He can’t sit still, stand still, keep his hands still. He even talks that way, like he has three things on his mind at the same time, and wants to say all three. Sometimes he starts a sentence, and then discards it in the middle, and starts a completely new one.

“You wouldn’t want me as your boss,” Edi says.

“Why?”

“Because I’d drive you mad.”

Martín laughs again. Edi sits on the table and watches him dig in the car’s insides. Something about this feels calming, safe. Enough to forget that it’s actually wrong.

The old digital clock on one of the shelves reads half past two when Martín throws the tools on the table and wipes his hands on the very same towel Edi used to dry his hair.

“So, what do we do with you now?” he sighs. “I suppose you don’t want to return… wherever.”

Edi shakes his head.

“I can’t lock you in here,” Martín shrugs. “I guess I’ll have to take you home with me.”

Edi laughs. “You’ve just met me and you’re going to let me sleep in your bed?”

Martín looks at him and frowns. “When did I say I was letting you sleep in my bed?” he asks. “I have a sofa as well.”

~ ~ ~

The street he leads him to is about three streets away from the only one he knows here, and doesn’t want to know. There are less bars and discos, instead, there is one laundry room, a pawn shop, some warehouses and one dingy pub with a plain wooden door. They walk around the corner and up the stairs on the other side of the house. They lead to a corridor that is completely dark. Martín takes Edi’s hand and pulls him through it, as he obviously has the way memorized. Only when they stop at the door at the end of it, he pulls out his phone and uses the light of the display to find the lock.

What is hiding behind the beaten up and scratched door can’t be even called apartment. It’s a den with one window. One room that is a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen, all in one. There is something like a kitchen corner, with a tiny fridge and a microwave, separated from the rest of the room with a curtain. A narrow, messy bed in one corner, an old armchair and a sofa with a faded floral print standing at the wall. A low table full of mess, and a couple of cupboards, of which some are missing their doors.

“Bathroom is on the corridor, but I guess you’ve showered enough today,” Martín grins and plops down on the sofa.

“Yeah.”

“Is it too rude to ask where you came to that?” Martín asks and gestures to the bruise on Edi’s cheek. “You know, just to make sure no one’s going to kick down my door.”

“At home.”

Martín raises his brows, but then he gets up without a word, and goes to the kitchen.

“I wish I had a cooler story,” Edi shrugs when Martín comes back. “But no one’s going to kick down your door.”

“I almost wish they were,” Martín says and hands him a couple ice cubes wrapped in a kitchen towel.

“Do you normally just take strangers home?” Edi asks while Martín is digging in one of the cupboards.

“No.”

“Then why me?”

Martín turns around and shrugs. “You looked like you needed it,” he says simply and hands him a folded blanket, an old and scratchy thing that has definitely seen better days. “I do need the shower, though, so I’m gonna leave you here for a moment.”

He grabs a towel that is thrown over the rickety radiator under the window, and makes way to the door.

“Keep the light on if you’re afraid of the dark, mama’s gonna be right back,” he grins and closes the door.

Edi laughs and settles on the sofa. The cushions are old and worn, each of them has dips in different places, and he supposes that his back is going to hurt in the morning, but he couldn’t care less. He traces the pattern with his finger. It works better than counting sheep.

The doesn’t even hear Martín come back.

~ ~ ~

When he wakes up, the sun is already high and the street outside is buzzing. Martín is sitting in the armchair, tuning a beaten up guitar.

“Morning,” he says. “You’re not an early bird, are you?”

“What time is it?” Edi asks.

“Nine.”

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

“You were right,” Martín says. “You’re not my boss yet, and you’re already driving me mad.”

“I told you.”

“Well, guess what, it’s fucking Saturday,” Martín says, throws the guitar on the bed and stretches lazily. “Which means I don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Well, I have to,” Edi sighs. “Home.”

“You sure you want to?” Martín asks.

“No,” Edi says. “But I have to.”

“Fine,” Martín shrugs. “But my sofa is here whenever you need it. Just so that you know.”

Edi nods and picks up his jacket. It’s still damp.

In the daylight, he finally sees the corridor. Broken chairs, an old television, things that they don’t need downstairs anymore, are lining the walls. Edi suspects that this is where a lot of Martín’s furniture comes from, and also thinks it’s a miracle they didn’t trip over something at night, since it was completely dark. He looks up. All of the lightbulbs are broken, somewhere only cables remain, hanging from the ceiling. _And God said: “Let there be light.” And then someone took a couple rocks and decided to make Him mad._

~ ~ ~

It surprisingly takes him some time to find the car service again. He wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going that night. The streets also look different in the daylight.

When he walks in, Martín is looking alternately at an old Range Rover, and a visibly unsettled woman standing next to it.

“Where the hell were you driving this? Dakar Rally?” he asks.

The woman scratches her head nervously. “Well, it’s been making weird noises lately…” she says.

“What does _lately_ mean?”

“For… like… a month?”

Martín looks at Edi and rolls his eyes.

“Look, some parts of this should have been resting in peace in a scrapyard for a long time now. Which means that we have to replace them, which means we have to find them… which means I will probably have to rob a museum.”

The woman looks like she is now regretting her choice of car service.

“How long do I have to wait?” she asks.

Martín sighs. “Give me a week. That’s doable,” he says and looks at Edi. “What does the manager say?”

“That you should be less rude to clients,” Edi says.

Martín grins, looking at the woman crossing the yard awkwardly in her high heels while yelling at someone on the phone. “Clients should be less rude to their cars.”

“Then you’d have no job,” Edi shrugs.

Martín narrows his eyes. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again,” he says.

Edi raises his brows. “Afraid?”

“Okay, mildly worried,” Martín says and rummages in the mess on the desk before handing him a couple folded banknotes. “Here.”

Edi looks at him. “What is that?”

“Your share,” Martín says calmly.

“What share?”

Martín rolls his eyes. “So you said it would be a pity if the radio went to waste, right? You saved it. I sold it. This is your share.”

Edi just blinks. He’s almost forgotten about the radio.

“By chance, do you have a moment?” Martín asks.

“Why?”

“I have a car that has way too many wires for my taste,” Martín says. “It’s one hundred percent legal, if you’re concerned about that. I just… hate this mess.”

“Okay,” Edi nods.

~ ~ ~

The job takes him more time than he expected. When he’s done, it’s already dark outside. He figures it’s not as much about Martín hating the mess as it’s about him lacking the patience to deal with anything requiring time and precision.

Which is completely fine with Edi.

“I would have cut all those wires and set that shit on fire,” Martín says and puts an arm around Edi’s shoulders. “You saved my life… or job, at least.”

Edi laughs. He’s kind of getting used to Martín touching him all the time, wrapping his arms around him at random, touching his hair, placing a hand on his back. It’s simply a part of him, he needs to keep his hands occupied. He’s also getting used to the longer and longer moments in which they look into each other’s eyes in silence, until one of them breaks the eye contact with a guilty smile.

“If you want to, we can… I don’t know… have a beer, watch football…” Edi says. “So that it doesn’t look like you’re exploiting me.”

Martín smiles sheepishly. “I can’t. I have… plans.”

“Plans you can’t tell me about,” Edi states.

Martín hesitates. “You sure you’re not a cop, right?” he asks.

Edi laughs. “Absolutely. I mean… imagine the amount of respect I would get.”

“Yeah, zero to minus ten,” Martín chuckles.

“So you can tell me?”

“No,” Martín grins. “But maybe I can show you.”

~ ~ ~

He is almost sure that the car they are sitting in doesn’t belong to Martín. Not like he knows much about cars as such, but to be able to afford a car like this, Martín would have to sell at least a kidney. Although something tells Edi that if such offer came, Martín would have at least considered it.

“You know, maybe you can help me,” Martín says and glances at him.

“I don’t even know where we are going,” Edi objects. “How do you want me to help you?”

“You’ll see,” Martín says and hands him a stack of banknotes. “Act like they’re yours, okay?”

Edi doesn’t understand anything anymore, but he slips the money in his pocket.

“You don’t need to know where we’re going,” Martín adds. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, really.”

“Why doesn’t that sound reassuring?” Edi muses.

Martín just laughs.

It indeed is the middle of nowhere, some rural area he’s never heard of. Edi can’t think of a single reason someone would go there, unless they would be a farmer or a murderer wanting to bury their victim. And since he guesses Martín isn’t either, it confuses him even more.

When they take a turn and end up on an empty road near a bridge, he realizes that they are not the only fools going there. There are so many cars and people around that it looks almost like an open-air party or a picnic, except no one would probably host either at one in the morning.

“What the…” Edi says and then turns to Martín. “You’re not… going to do what I think you’re going to do, right?”

“Well, I don’t know what you think I’m going to do,” Martín laughs.

“Drive like crazy and kill yourself.”

“No, definitely not. Not the second part, at least,” Martín says. “But otherwise, I think your guess is correct.”

They get out of the car. The place is buzzing, and there’s a strange atmosphere to it. Like there’s electricity in the air.

“Hey, Martín, you brought a mascot?” someone calls. “That’s not gonna help you, you know?”

Martín grins. “Why do you think he’s my mascot? Maybe he’s my sponsor. Maybe I’m betting his money,” he says and looks around. “Who’s keeping the money? You, Nico?”

A guy in a dark jacket nods and comes closer to them. Martín gives Edi a slight nod. Edi reaches for the money in his pocket and hands them to the guy. Another man does the same and before he goes back to his car, he shakes hands with Martín.

The man smirks. “Not sure you’re investing in the right horse, boy,” he says and clips Edi on the shoulder.

“I’m sure I am.”

The man smirks again. “Someone go to the finish line, okay?”

Two of the onlookers nod and get in a car. Everything looks almost ritualized, everyone has a role they are familiar with. It has a strange charm to it. Edi feels like he’s now a part of some secret pact.

If Martín is normally restless, now it’s even more apparent. It’s like there is an incredible amount of energy accumulated in him that needs to get out.

“Pass me the screwdriver,” he says and catches it when the other guy throws it to him.

He takes off the license plate and hands it to Edi. “Keep that safe for me, love.”

Edi wishes he could keep Martín’s keys safe instead, to stop this madness.

Nico tucks the money safely in the breast pocket of his jacket and then pulls out a flashlight.

“Light signal, okay?” he says and hands the flashlight to a girl. “Go get ready.”

The crowd runs up the stairs leading up to the bridge. Edi follows them, because the only way to do this is to do what everyone else is doing. The bridge offers a view on a large portion of the road, right until a turn makes it disappear between some factory units.

The sound of the engines is deafeningly loud in the dead silence of the night, and then an eruption of cheering and laughter follows. They watch on until the lights disappear behind the turn.

“Let’s go!” someone calls, and a girl grabs his hand and drags him down the stairs.

It all feels like a feverish dream, everyone around looks like they’re drunk or high on something, but it’s nothing more than adrenaline and the smell of gas and burnt tires. It’s crazy and fast and fun, and it’s just - like Martín.

It looks like no one gives a damn whose car they get into. Edi ends up in a car with three other people he doesn’t know, but nobody seems to mind.

The finish line is another empty space hidden between the factory units. He gets out of the car and before his head wraps around everything, Martín has his arms around him and he’s squeezing the life out of him.

“Hey!” he laughs then and looks at him. “Are you okay?”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Edi says. “And I wasn’t even in that car.”

Martín laughs. “And I thought I could get you to try it.”

“What? Driving like this, or sitting in the car with you driving it?” Edi asks. “Because I don’t know which one is scarier.”

Martín laughs and turns around. “Nico! Where’s my fucking money?”

The guy pulls out the money and spreads the banknotes out on the hood of the car, with everyone watching like they are the notary overseeing that everything happens according to the rules. In a way, they probably are. Martín pockets them contentedly and then turns to Edi.

“I’m definitely keeping you!” he says and kisses him on the cheek. “You bring me luck.”

“Don’t you always win?” Edi asks.

“Hell no! I _never_ win!”

“Okay, guys, time to get the fuck out of here!” the man who seems to be somehow organizing the whole thing, announces. “The town deserves we leave them alone now.”

~ ~ ~

“You actually played it really well,” Martín says when they get back on the road they came down here. “They ate it up.”

“Why did you want me to pretend the money was mine?”

“Because now they’ll believe me I have the money available,” Martín says. “They only let you in if you have the money. And it took me long enough to put it together every time, and they know that. But now they think I have money on hand. Some people do it like this, you know. It’s like betting on horses.”

“Some people like who?”

“Maybe rich kids who like the thrill, but are afraid of actually getting in the car themselves,” Martín says and glances at him with the familiar, lizard-like look.

“Don’t do it!” Edi says warningly.

“What?”

“You know what. Don’t do it.”

Martín gives him his signature smirk. “I’m gonna do it.”

“Don’t!”

Martín steps on the gas and Edi feels like his stomach has just made a flip and then dropped somewhere under the seat.

“You’re mad!” he shouts at him.

“I can’t hear you!” Martín laughs.

“Slow down!”

“Have you never wanted to fly?” Martín asks.

“Not to heaven after you kill us!”

Martín finally slows down to a reasonable speed.

“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” he asks.

Edi rolls down the window and breathes in the night air. The adrenaline is diluting, and it feels like he could indeed fly.

“Yeah,” he says. “It was.”


	4. Chapter 4

The metal gate to the yard of the car service is locked. Edi tries the back door, with the same result. Only then he realizes that it’s Saturday.

The pub under Martín’s place is closed as well. He walks up the stairs and by some miracle manages not to trip over anything on the corridor. He knocks on the scratched door, but there’s no answer.

When he walks back on the street, he realizes how pathetic this is. He only has two emergency routes. One is closed now, and he’s not sure if he can take the other. He walks to the bus stop anyway, and takes the bus right back to where he’s just come from.

The lights in Paolo’s van are on. When he knocks, Paolo opens the door just a crack, and peeks out carefully.

“You?” he growls and pushes the door open more.

“Just me, no need to shoot me,” Edi says.

Paolo makes a face and lowers the hand with the gun. Edi looks at the fresh bruise on his cheekbone. “Hard night?”

“Kind of. What do you want again? I thought I told you to fuck off for some time.”

“It’s been some time.”

Paolo rolls his eyes, but then he steps aside. The van is much messier than usual. Like Paolo stopped caring altogether, or was busy with other things.

“What is it this time?” Paolo asks.

Edi sits on the bed, which is the only place free of the mess.

“It’s always the same thing, and I even get it, I get that maybe they’re right,” he says. “Because I don’t want to do what I’m good at, and I want to do something else. I know that if I got a job repairing electronics, or at a car service, I’d be making decent money already. Instead, I’m studying management, but I’m… well, mediocre at best.”

“And that’s the problem?”

“ _I_ am the problem!” Edi says. “Me not having a job and my own place is the problem.”

Paolo gives him an amused glance. “Boy, I’m not sure you chose the right person to discuss this,” he says. “I mean… look at me. It’s more than obvious that I don’t give a shit about any of that.”

“But it was your choice, wasn’t it?” Edi asks. “I mean, it was you who said ‘fuck it, I’m gonna live in a van and do shady business’.”

Paolo throws his head back and laughs. “I never said that, but fine,” he says. “Oh God, where is this conversation even going? Okay, go on. Let’s say it was my choice, yeah, although I don’t know what you mean by _shady business_. I love that expression, though. I’m gonna use it from now on.”

“Why am I even telling you anything?” Edi sighs and tries to get up, but Paolo pulls him back.

“Because you have no one else,” he says calmly. “I’m not saying it’s not serious. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the absurdity of the situation.”

Edi takes a deep breath and leans his back against the wall, pulling his knees to his chest.

“It’s that… I feel like a cuckoo, except there’s no objective reason why I should feel that way because I’m fucking home!” he says. “But everything I do is wrong. Everything I am is wrong. And they don’t even know half of what I am.”

Paolo shrugs. “Send them to hell, then.”

“ _You_ can send someone to hell, because then you close yourself in here and you don’t have to give a damn, but I have to return home and live there with them. And we get back to the beginning.”

Paolo sighs, then he opens a cupboard and pulls out the emergency bottle of tequila. He pours it into two glasses and hands him one.

“Drink up,” he says.

“I don’t drink,” Edi objects.

“You do now.”

Edi gulps down the tequila and coughs. For a while, he just stares at the door. He doesn’t feel like talking anymore, he doesn’t even feel like moving, except when Paolo hands him a second glass, and then the third.

“Do you think that education is a way to better life?” he asks then.

Paolo turns to him, the cigarette unlit between his lips. “The fuck?”

“If you think that education can get you better life,” Edi repeats. “Because I believe it, and nobody else does, and I feel like I’m the idiot here.”

“Define better life,” Paolo says, finally lighting the cigarette.

Edi just stares at him.

“What’s that better life for you? Money, car, your own place?” Paolo shrugs. “Because there are other ways to get it, and you don’t need a degree for it.”

“Maybe getting out of here.”

“And going where?” Paolo asks.

“Anywhere. Some bigger city. Or a different country. Europe, even.”

“Grass is not greener in Europe,” Paolo says dismissively. “You don’t become a different person by going to Europe, or Africa, or Mars. Whatever problems you have, you’ll carry them there like a backpack.”

“So you think the same,” Edi says. “You’re like them.”

Paolo listens to him calmly, like he’s heard that exact story a hundred times before. He lays a hand on Edi’s shoulder and his thumb brushes his collarbone. Edi closes his eyes. It feels good. Calming.

“You have to get used to the fact that a lot of people here see it this way. They’re mistrustful of the system as it is. And they don’t believe in leaving and finding luck elsewhere. Because maybe once when they were your age, they tried. And they failed, and ended up with an ugly girl from the neighborhood. Life was like that for them, why should it be different for you?”

Edi stays silent for a while. The alcohol is getting into his head, making everything slower. Then he feels the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Why is everyone so stupid?” he sobs.

Paolo smiles indulgently. “No more tequila for you,” he says.

Edi lifts his eyes to him. Then he lightly brushes Paolo’s lips with his. He doesn’t think anymore, everything is fragmentary, like someone is switching the light on and off constantly. He just knows that he’s suddenly someone else. Or wants to be. He wants to be selfish, inconsiderate and irresponsible, and for once, he doesn’t want to think about what’s right.

He unbuttons his shirt and reaches for Paolo’s. Paolo grabs his wrist and stops him.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” he laughs. “I’m not that much into you, okay?”

Edi is so drunk and tired that he doesn’t care anymore. He just stares at Paolo absently.

“Keep this for someone better than me,” Paolo says and buttons up his shirt, because Edi couldn’t fit the buttons in the right holes anymore.

“I’m not sure there will ever be anyone better,” Edi mumbles, curls up on the bed and closes his eyes.

~ ~ ~

When he wakes up, the lights in the van are off, but bleak yellow light is pouring in from the outside. He doesn’t know what it was that woke him up. Maybe the light, maybe a sound, or maybe nothing at all.

He struggles to get up. His head hurts like hell and he’s thirsty.

The door is ajar, as if Paolo left in a hurry. Otherwise, he’s quite meticulous about closing it and locking it. When he gets to the right angle to see outside, he understands that the light is coming from the headlights of two cars parked there. Also, there are way more people than he would ever expect at this place.

He starts to get it when he realizes that he knows one of them. There’s a tall blond man in his field of vision, whom he doesn’t recognize, but the one next to him is definitely Arévalo.

“What the hell were you fuckers thinking?” the blond asks someone who has his back to Edi.

“Us? It’s you who doesn’t respect the border!” Whoever it is, he sounds young, and bold.

“The border? What are you, a fucking customs officer?” the man asks incredulously. “Fine, if you’re obsessed with the border, I’ll explain it like this. Our stuff goes to your side of the border, for the set price. It does not go back.”

“You don’t have a monopoly, Lugano.”

Arévalo chuckles, as though he’s just said a bad joke.

“I know my stuff when I see it. Do you want me to look in your trunk? I can already tell you what I’ll find there. Fifteen kilos of _my_ heroin that mysteriously went missing last month on your side of the border,” Lugano says. “Do you want me to look?”

The boy - because once he moves and Edi can see the side of his face, he realizes that he can be about his age, maybe even younger - holds up his hands.

“Look,” he says. “I get it. This is a small country, negligible market. I get you need to sell in Argentina as well. But in that quantity? You’re leaving no space for us.”

“So what? Is that supposed to make me sad?”

“I’m offering you a deal,” the boy says.

“Fucking Maradona’s daughter doesn’t make you important enough to offer deals on his behalf,” Arévalo says dryly.

Lugano smirks appreciatively, but then he folds his arms. “I’m listening.”

“If you sell, you’ll only sell to us,” the boy says. “You can keep the price.”

“What’s in it for you, then?”

“We’ll be the unique distributors.”

“Where’s your money in it, that’s what I mean.”

“Added margin. Selling more than we buy.”

Lugano nods thoughtfully. “Cutting it with brown sugar or some other shit,” he says. “For a moment I thought you had a decent plan, not a recipe for caramel. That’s probably too much to ask.”

If the boy is offended, he doesn’t let it show. “What’s it matter to you what happens to it after you sell it to us? You get your money. You get the exact same price.”

The biggest irony of this is that Edi knows nothing about drug trafficking, he’s still kind of drunk and his head is not working properly, but even he understands why it matters to Lugano. But the boy obviously doesn’t study management, and knows nothing about the importance of reputation and the brand.

“So we are the supplier, you’re the distributor. We’re not losing anything, you’re making profit,” Lugano summarizes.

The boy nods. “So? What do you say?”

Lugano nods slowly. “There’s only one thing I can say to such offer,” he says.

Even if the boy has a gun, he gets no time to draw it. There’s no warning sign, there’s just the shot, quick and dry, with no echo.

Edi manages to press a hand to his mouth, but he also instinctively takes a step back.

The sound isn’t even that loud. Either it’s an instinct, or he just hears really well, but Lugano immediately turns in the direction of the van.

“Come out!” he says. His voice is low, but in the dead silence, it sounds like he’s right next to him.

Edi pushes the door open, heart beating somewhere in his throat. His head is spinning slightly, and he doesn’t know the exact cause, but it doesn’t really matter.

“Down here.”

Edi walks down the steps of the van carefully. He’s desperately trying not to look down, although looking up isn’t much better.

The expression on Lugano’s face when he sees him is indescribable. It’s almost like he’s sorry, and angry, and exasperated at the same time.

“What do I do with you now, boy?” he sighs.

Edi doesn’t say anything, because it’s clear that it’s more or less a philosophical question, and even if it isn’t, he’s not the one supposed to answer it.

“Hold on, hold on,” he hears a familiar lazy voice, and then Paolo emerges from the shadows. “Edi’s a good boy, he didn’t see anything.”

Lugano pauses for a while, like he’s weighing the pros and cons.

“You are an irresponsible idiot,” he says then. “But I’m not.”

Instead of taking a step back, Paolo takes one to the side, so that he’s standing right between Edi and the gun.

“Let me handle this,” he says, and then adds a word Edi thought Paolo didn’t know. “Please.”

Lugano hesitates for another while, and there must be something Paolo does, or some mutual understanding between them that sways him the other way.

“Your responsibility, Guerrero,” he says. “If the cops come sniffing around because your little friend here runs his mouth, I’ll throw you under the bus. Literally.”

Paolo nods.

“Take care of your mess, we’ll take care of ours.”

Paolo turns around and grabs Edi without a word, dragging him along. He literally pulls him up the stairs, kicks the door shut behind them and drops him on the bed like a sack of potatoes.

Everything in Edi is screaming at him to run, but his body is refusing to move. Except for the shaking that he can’t stop.

There is a loud sound of something crashing and breaking, and then Paolo swears loudly.

His world has shrunken to the small circle around him. Even Paolo isn’t in it, until he crashes through the invisible barrier of it.

“Don’t say anything,” he says. “Don’t even move.”

Edi wouldn’t move even if he could. He’s so terrified that when Paolo sticks the needle in his vein, he’s almost grateful for it.

~ ~ ~

The sun is shining way too bright. Edi lifts his arm to cover his eyes, but it does little to help the headache and nausea.

“Oh, so you’re alive,” Paolo says. “For a moment, I was… well, I can’t say worried because if you died, it would also solve the situation.”

Edi just stares at him. His mind is a complete mess. It’s like he remembers everything, but it’s scrambled, and hazy, and he wouldn’t be able to put it in a linear narrative.

“You… really did that,” he says.

Paolo folds his arms. “Okay, first thing. Don’t ever talk about it. With anyone. It didn’t happen.”

“I can’t just forget what I saw!”

“You didn’t see anything,” Paolo says, his voice low, but somehow dangerous at the same time. “You took a hit of heroin, you had a bad trip. God knows what you saw.”

Edi just stares at him in disbelief.

“So if you want to go to the police and tell them you saw a murder, I’m going to advise them to run a drug test with you,” Paolo says. “Sorry, but I needed that little safety lock.”

“What in the hell was safe about this?” Edi yells at him.

He feels like he could kill him. Paolo has his own ideas of solving things, and most of them are very unorthodox and not always safe. He’s kind of used to it by now, but this is too much even by Paolo’s standards.

“You know, maybe you could be a bit nicer to me,” Paolo says. “I kind of… saved your life, remember?”

“And nearly killed me ten minutes later, remember?” Edi retorts.

Paolo rolls his eyes. “Don’t be overdramatic,” he says. “Okay, I agree that mixing heroin with alcohol is not a good idea. But I had no better idea at the moment.”

Edi gives up. Reasoning with Paolo is the same as reasoning with a reckless child sometimes.

“What am I supposed to do now, then?”

“Go home,” Paolo says. “There’s nothing better you can do now.”

Finally, there is something he can agree with.

He opens the door and looks around the empty space. Everything looks eerily normal. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t find a single proof, a single trace of what happened last night. He’s starting to believe that if he really told anyone, they would think he was crazy.

He almost thinks that he’s crazy himself.

“Who is Martín?” Paolo asks suddenly.

Edi turns back, his hand lingering on the handle. “Why?”

“You were calling his name when you were out of it,” Paolo says. “Who is it?”

“Nobody,” Edi snaps and bangs the door shut.


	5. Chapter 5

Edi lets a car pass him by before walking through the metal gate and crossing the yard. Martín looks at him and smiles, like seeing him makes his day, and Edi wants to punch him and fall in his arms and cry, all at the same time, and he doesn’t know what to choose.

“Hey,” Martín says. “Kind of an odd time for you, isn’t it?”

“Where were you on Saturday?” Edi asks.

No matter how much he tries to control his voice, it still sounds like a reproach.

“You do sound like a cop now,” Martín laughs. “I was helping a friend with his truck. He needs it for his business, and it was kinda fucked up… why? Was I supposed to be anywhere else? Because that sometimes happens to me, so…”

“No,” Edi shakes his head. “Just that I was looking for you.”

Martín nods, but there’s the curious glint in his eyes that lets Edi know that he’s not convinced.

“Is that the only reason why you’re mad at me, or did I do anything else as well?” he asks.

“I’m not mad at you,” Edi says, and he doesn’t know if he’s lying or telling the truth.

He has to be angry with someone, and he doesn’t know who to pick. He’s angry with the whole universe for aligning the stars in this stupid way that night. None of that would have happened if he had just stayed home. Or if Martín had been home that night. They’d have a pizza and beer, and Edi would have fallen asleep on his couch and not Paolo’s.

“Okay,” Martín says. “I’m not buying it, but fine.”

Edi lowers his eyes. For a moment, he’s close to just spilling everything out. He feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t tell anyone, except that he’s also going to die if he tells anyone, and he also doesn’t want to get anyone else in trouble.

“It’s just… everything sucks now,” he says. At least he’s not lying that much. “School and life and everything.”

Martín looks at him.

“Why do you keep doing something you hate?” he asks. “I mean school.”

“What? I don’t hate- Okay, maybe I don’t like it. But it’s not like I hate it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think management is very useful, but come on,” Martín says. “You’re not cut for that. I can’t see you bossing people around, yelling at them that they should have sold fifty more pairs of shoes to make your fancy diagram, or whatever, right.”

“You can’t?” Edi asks and looks at him.

“Edi, if you told me I should work quicker, I’d tell you to shove your diagrams up you ass,” Martín says. “And I wouldn’t be afraid of losing my job. Rightfully so, admit it.”

“Yeah,” Edi nods. “Rightfully so. If you told me that, I’d dig myself a hole and I’d hide in it.”

Martín laughs and looks at him.

“Why did you choose it, then?” he asks. “Why not something more… fun?”

“I would have chosen a different thing,” Edi shrugs. “But they weren’t on offer here. And I couldn’t afford to move to a different city.”

Martín nods. It’s like money is the common ground, one of the few where they can meet and agree with each other. Otherwise, they don’t really have much in common. Martín has friends, a ton of friends, because he just calls anyone a friend. He’s got his own place, which might be a dingy hole with a bathroom on the corridor of an even dingier pub, but it’s his, and he doesn’t have to explain to anyone where he goes and why. He’s got hobbies, some of them dangerous and illegal, but he genuinely likes the things he does.

“What about you? Have you always wanted to do this?” Edi asks.

Martín shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah. I mean… it wasn’t the biggest dream, but all my dreams have always been about cars, so…” He laughs and looks at Edi. “I sure knew school wasn’t for me. Even this stuff… I don’t do things the proper way they should be done. I kinda go about it my own way. I think you can’t go about… accounting or whatever… your own way.”

“Unless you want to end up in jail for fraud, then no,” Edi chuckles.

Martín looks out of the door and groans. “No, not this shit again!”

An old Range Rover stops in the yard and a familiar distressed woman jumps out.

“Tonight at the pub under my place?” Martín asks. “Unless I get arrested for killing this woman.”

“I’ll be there,” Edi smiles. “Don’t kill anyone.”

“I’ll try,” Martín sighs. “But it will be hard.”

~ ~ ~

Edi puts the folder with his notes in his bag and zips it up. When he looks up, he thinks that he’s hallucinating.

Paolo is leaning over the fence. Judging by the pile of cigarette ends on the sidewalk, he’s been waiting there for quite some time. He looks so out of place there that every second person passing him by glances over their shoulder like they want to make sure they weren’t seeing things.

“Finally,” he says. “I was already considering going inside and dragging you out.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Edi asks.

“Waiting for you,” Paolo says. “Would you prefer me to ring your bell during a family dinner?”

Edi sighs. “What do you want?”

“Me? Nothing. Lugano wants to talk to you, and if you think that I’m happy to be a taxi driver, I’m not,” Paolo says. “Get in.”

“Why the hell should I do that?” Edi asks.

“Do you really want me to list other reasons than the one I’ve just told you?” Paolo raises his brows. “If you want to die, you could have just said so back then, and spare me the trouble.”

“So I’m not going to die?”

“If you keep this attitude, you are, and very soon,” Paolo growls.

Edi sighs and gets in the car.

“To be honest, if your biggest fear is dying, you’re not even as big of a coward as you think you are,” Paolo muses and starts the car.

“It’s not my biggest fear.”

“Then what is?”

Edi laughs humorlessly. “I’d never tell you that.”

Paolo gives him a smirk, and Edi would swear that there’s a hint of praise in it.

“How was school today?” Paolo asks when they stop at the traffic lights.

Edi turns to him. “Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah,” Paolo grins. “Sorry. I’ve never picked anyone from school, I got a bit too much into the daddy role.”

Edi shakes his head and looks out of the window. “It sucked,” he says. “Thanks for asking. You’re the first one to ask me in ages, so…”

“Gotta work on those grades, son,” Paolo says in a fake concerned voice.

“Please, just stop this,” Edi groans.

Paolo stops the car in front of the bar Edi already knows. By day, it doesn’t look as sketchy as it does by night.

They walk up the rickety staircase and enter the room with mismatched furniture, but it’s empty. Then Edi realizes that this is just some kind of an antechamber, like the secretary’s office everyone has to go through if they want to meet the boss.

The boss is obviously Lugano, and he indeed looks like he’s just having another day at the office. Arévalo is standing in the corner, like he’s just there for moral support. Not like Lugano needs any.

“Edinson, right?” he asks. “I suppose you know who I am, and that you don’t want to shake my hand right now, so let’s skip it. Have a seat.”

Edi sits in one of the small armchairs that have seen better days, and that the previous owners of this place probably left here in the late seventies.

Lugano looks at him like he wants to read him like a book, except that Edi is sure that he already knows everything there is to know about him.

“What happened that night was a very sad accident, and none of it was your fault,” he says then. “Paolo should have told me you were there, then we wouldn’t be here. But what happened, happened, and now we have to make the best out of it.”

Edi just keeps looking at him. It’s absolutely insane that for the first time in ages, someone is not blaming him for the way the wind blows, someone is telling him that whatever shit he is in, it wasn’t his fault, and that someone is a man everyone in the room fears, and he should fear him the most, but instead of chills going up his spine, he’s feeling some sick, sticky warmth, like someone is pouring warm honey down his back.

“You know, I don’t want you to be grateful to me. I wasn’t doing you a favor. I don’t do favors. I do business. I did something for you, and I expect you to do something for me now,” Lugano says. “That way, we can both profit from it.”

“Do what?” Edi asks. “I know nothing about this. You don’t know me, but when it comes to… pretty much anything that requires either brains or courage, I’m quite useless, and I think your business requires both.”

Lugano gives him an amused smile.

“Paolo knows you, and Arévalo says he’s had the pleasure, and none of them think you’re useless,” he says. “I still have to see for myself, but no, you don’t strike me as either stupid or useless.”

Edi shifts in his seat. The last thing he expected from coming here was getting compliments.

“Then?” he asks.

“You do have a passport, right?” Lugano asks.

“Why?”

“I’ll send you on a trip,” Lugano smiles. “To Colombia.”

Only then it becomes real. That feeling of warmth disappears and the game starts, as if there’s a playing board between them and Lugano’s just rolled the dice.

Edi jumps up, whirls around and runs out of the door, through the other room and down the stairs.

He would swear that before the door closes behind him, he hears Lugano laugh.

~ ~ ~

Edi only stops running when he’s two streets from the bar. Nobody is chasing him. He figures that they don’t really need to. They can always find him when they feel like it.

When he walks inside the pub, Martín is already sitting at a table in the corner.

“You look like you need a drink,” he says.

“I don’t really have good memories of that one time I had a drink,” Edi mumbles.

“Everyone’s got at least one memory like that,” Martín grins. “Just pick a different drink.”

Edi smiles and plops down on the chair. The pub is fuller than he would expect from a place like this.

“You look like you’re running from an army of zombies,” Martín says when the bartender drops the drink in front of Edi.

“Something worse,” Edi mumbles.

“Worse? Sure, people,” Martín states. “Does this strategy really work for you?”

Edi frowns. “What strategy?”

“Running. From people, things, problems…”

Edi shrugs. “It used to. Not anymore, it seems.”

“Here you are,” a familiar voice says above him, as if to confirm his words.

“Leave me alone,” Edi says.

“Let me tell you, if you think you can walk out on Lugano, you’re even more fucking mental than I thought,” Paolo says. “Now get the fuck up and let’s go, or I’ll drag you out by your neck!”

Paradoxically, his words don’t scare Edi in the slightest. He doesn’t even look at Paolo. His eyes shift to Martín, who is staring at Paolo in disbelief.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asks incredulously.

Paolo smirks. “You must be Martín.”

“Yeah,” Martín says. “Do I know you?”

“No, and I don’t know you, at least not personally. Just Edinson here for some reason talks about you when he’s high as kite,” Paolo says with a smirk. “Look, your friend… or whatever you two are… has got some debts he has to pay. When he does, he’s all yours.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Edi says.

“Okay, you had your warning,” Paolo says and makes a step towards him.

Martín doesn’t hesitate a moment. He jumps up, pushes Paolo away from the table and pulls out a sliding knife. Edi can’t see his face, but something in it makes Paolo make a step back, and it’s the first time Edi sees him do that.

Edi finally gets his body to stand up, and he grabs Martín around the waist. The bartender comes to his aid a moment later.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he yells.

“I’m not the one coming here uninvited, threatening people!” Martín spits out.

“I get that,” the bartender says. “You hide the knife. And he will get out of here.”

He pushes Paolo towards the door. Martín watches him warily until he’s at the door. Then he throws the knife over the whole room. The moment Paolo’s hand touches the handle, the knife hits the door a few inches above his head. Someone in the bar drops a glass.

Martín grips Edi’s wrists and breaks his hold on his waist. He walks to the door and pulls the knife out of the wood. Then he looks back, and Edi would swear that no one, not a single person in his life has ever given him a more disgusted look.

He would swear that Martín was the most chill person he’s ever known. With his carefree, reckless nature, he could laugh almost anything off. To make his blood boil was quite an achievement. And Edi isn’t proud of that achievement a single bit.

When he runs out of the pub, Martín is already halfway down the street.

“Martín!” Edi calls. “Let me explain this!”

Martín stops and looks at him. “I’ve heard enough,” he says. “And if you’re involved with these people, then I don’t want to be involved with you, it’s as simple as that!”

“I don’t want to be involved with them either!”

“So why the hell are you?” Martín asks.

“Because I have to!” Edi says desperately. “Because I have no choice.”

Martín shakes his head. “There’s always a choice. It can be something bad and something even worse, but there’s always a choice.”

“What you do isn’t legal either!” Edi retorts. “What gives you the right to judge me when what you do is the same thing?”

“No, it’s different!” Martín barks. “A car is a pile of steel and cables. If I take it apart, even if it’s stolen, and someone sells the parts, nobody dies. No matter how many times I do this, it doesn’t really hurt anyone. I don’t hurt anyone.”

“So I kill people?” Edi asks incredulously.

“Maybe not directly, but you will, eventually,” Martín says, and Edi realizes that he knows more about this than Edi does, and probably more than Edi ever wants to know.“This is where I draw the line. You clearly draw it somewhere else, and that’s the problem.”

Edi just keeps looking at him, because he has nothing more to say to it. He has no arguments to defend himself, unless he wants to Martín the whole truth, and that somehow looks like the worse of the two options. Somehow, he senses that he’s not the only one fighting with himself here, but then Martín breaks the spell.

“Bye,” he says, sticks his hands deep in his pockets and walks away.


	6. Chapter 6

The windows of Paolo’s van are dark and his car is gone. Any other day, Edi would turn back and return home, but right now, he feels like he can’t make another step. He’s spent the past few hours walking around the city, and he can’t remember a single place he was at.

The silence around him is nearly insufferable. He sits on the stairs of the van and leans his back against the door. Then he closes his eyes and finally allows himself to cry.

He wakes up when Paolo lightly kicks his side.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growls. “I thought you wanted me to leave you alone.”

Edi is too drowsy to come up with a snarky response, so he just shrugs and gets up clumsily. Paolo shakes his head and unlocks the door.

“Where’s your guardian dog?” he asks when he switches on the light.

“I don’t know,” Edi says.

“To be honest, I was imagining someone less idiotic,” Paolo says. “Not a kid that pulls out a knife in the middle of a pub.”

“Judging someone’s recklessness sounds strange from you,” Edi mumbles.

“Well, I had a gun, but I’m not mad enough to pull it out and shoot him there,” Paolo says and pulls the gun out of his jacket before throwing the jacket on the chair. He looks at Edi somewhat questioningly, like he’s seeing him for the first time.

“Why are you looking at me like this?” Edi asks.

“I’m trying to figure out what’s happened to you,” Paolo says. “I’m holding a gun. And you’re not frozen in place.”

“I know,” Edi says. “I’m getting used to it.”

“Are you?” Paolo smirks and raises his hand to press the gun against his temple.

Edi takes a deep breath and looks him in the eyes. “See?”

Paolo laughs. “Your pulse is like two hundred and forty now, but you’re right, it’s getting better.”

“Yours wouldn’t be?”

Paolo smiles and offers him the gun. “Wanna try?” 

Edi shakes his head. “You know too well that I couldn’t.”

“Shoot me?”

“Not even that. Just put a gun to your head. I couldn’t.”

Paolo smirks and throws the gun on the table. “Okay.”

“Could you?” Edi asks. “Shoot me?”

Paolo turns around and looks at him. “You don’t really want me to answer that question, do you?”

“No,” Edi says. “Probably not.”

He looks around the van. He realizes that he’s already so familiar with it that it almost feels like home. But he doesn’t dare to call it home. In his mind, he’s already reconciled to the idea of having no home at all. But as things are right now, this is the only safe place he has.

In a sudden surge of boldness, he grabs Paolo’s arm and pulls him closer, pressing their chests together.

Paolo gives him a skeptical look. “What are you doing?”

“You said I should be nicer to you.”

Paolo sighs. “We’ve had this already,” he says. “Truth is that last time, you were at least drunk, which makes this worse, but…”

“You don’t like me?” Edi interrupts him.

“Well…” Paolo says and touches his hair. “If I’m to be honest… you could cut these, so that you would look less like a parody of Jesus Christ, and also fatten up a little bit, but other than that… you’re passable.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Paolo laughs incredulously and pushes him away. “The problem is that I’m not in the mood to listen to you crying afterwards.”

Edi frowns. “Why should I cry?”

Paolo just shakes his head. “I know you.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

Paolo looks at him and then smirks. “Fine. But you’ll go cry somewhere else, and more importantly, remember that I warned you, okay? So if you feel like you fucked up afterwards, which you will, I’m washing my hands clean of this.”

“I’ve done many stupid things in my life,” Edi says quietly. “And I know that this is not one of them.”

Paolo laughs dryly. “We’ll see about that later.”

Edi makes a tentative step towards him. He feels Paolo’s hands on the back of his neck when he pulls him closer and kisses him. Edi can’t say it’s some miracle, but at least he doesn’t feel stupid. There’s nothing particularly gentle about it, but he closes his eyes and just goes with it, waiting for the next move to become clear. He lifts his arms and touches Paolo’s shoulders, because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

“You have no idea about what you’re doing, do you?” Paolo asks.

“No,” Edi admits. “But you do.”

He feels like it’s no different from any other thing in his life. He’s never the one making decisions. He just goes along with whatever is happening around him. It’s the easy way. Paolo’s lips are on his again, and he feels like he is slowly getting it. He longs to see Paolo’s body, to feel his skin. It’s a desire he has never experienced before. It’s not something he wants, it’s something he _needs_. It wakes some predatory instincts in him, overshadows the fear, and he tears off Paolo’s shirt.

Paolo breaks the kiss and laughs. “You’re being fucking serious!”

“No, I normally joke around like this,” Edi says sarcastically, hooks his fingers on the chain around Paolo’s neck, and pulls him closer.

He’s never felt this way before, like he’s suddenly grown up, and like he’s a little boy again, all at once, in perfect balance. Despite his numerous warnings, Edi can’t shake off the feeling that Paolo is actually holding back. And a tiny part of him wishes he weren’t, wishes he would have him drink the bitter chalice whole.

~ ~ ~

Edi looks at himself in the cracked mirror above the sink and splashes cold water in his face a few more times. He presses his cold palms against his eyelids.

Paolo opens the door and before walking in, throws the cigarette end on the ground.

“Done crying?” he asks.

“I wasn’t crying!” Edi retorts, but hears his voice creak at the edges.

“Sure you weren’t,” Paolo makes a face and plops down on the messy bed. “You’re really mental.”

Edi sits on the edge of the bed, touching Paolo’s face lightly. Paolo cracks one eye open and makes a face.

“If you’re trying to fall in love with me, I’m telling you straight away that it won’t work.”

For a moment, it takes Edi’s breath away. Paolo can see through him like he’s made out of tissue paper.

“You were supposed to fall in love with me _before_ , you know?” he drawls. “That’s how normal people do it.”

“That would mean you’re not normal either,” Edi says. “Because you agreed to it.”

“I never said I was normal,” Paolo shrugs. “But the problem here is not why _I_ did it, it’s why _you_ did it. The problem is that you don’t love me. You hate yourself.”

“I tried to hate you first,” Edi whispers. “Then I realized none of this was your fault.”

“What exactly made you cry?” Paolo asks, and there is some childish curiosity to it. Like he’s witnessing something he’s always known existed, but he never got the opportunity to touch it, and now he desperately wants to know how it works.

Edi shrugs. “I don’t even know… That it was you, and it wasn’t supposed to be you… And that it was wrong, but it still was…”

“Kind of nice,” Paolo finishes.

Edi nods and bites down on his lip.

“Don’t worry about it too much, okay?” Paolo says, pushing a strand of Edi’s hair behind his ear. “Sex is an instinctive, animalistic thing. If you love the person as well, that’s just a nice bonus.”

“So you aren’t mad at me?” Edi asks.

“What for?”

“Well, that I… got you to do that,” Edi says.

“You weren’t that bad,” Paolo says. “Not like I had high expectations to begin with, but…”

Edi slaps him on the shoulder and curls up on the bed next to him. He should probably go home, but he likes where he is. He’s too tired to get up, and he likes feeling Paolo’s skin on his.

So he stays.

~ ~ ~

The club is still empty when Edi walks up the metal stairs. Paolo sits at the bar, helping himself to a drink, like this is his personal supply. Edi sort of wishes he went with him, but Paolo was quite adamant about him smoothing Lugano’s ruffled feathers himself.

This time, Arévalo isn’t there. Instead of him, a boy about Edi’s age is sitting in one of the armchairs.

“I see you’ve found your manners,” Lugano says when Edi sits down in the other. “It was amusing once, but don’t do it again.”

Edi shrugs. “I told you I was stupid.”

“Keep that tone for Paolo, don’t use it with me,” Lugano says calmly. “I’m offering you a decent deal here. No one’s saying that you have to be excited about it, but let’s keep it civil.”

“Whatever,” Edi sighs. “I have nothing to lose anymore.”

“You don’t want me to prove you wrong,” Lugano says. “Now, let’s get to business. You’ll be delivering something to someone in Colombia, and you’ll be taking something back from there. That’s all there is to it.”

He nods towards the other boy.

“Luis will keep an eye on you. He’s done this before, he knows the drill.”

Luis looks like he’s all but happy about being a babysitter, but he doesn’t say anything.

“You’ll take the same flight, but act like you don’t know each other. If anything happens, you don’t know each other. Do your thing and stick to the plan.”

He pulls out two envelopes, hands one to Luis and one to Edi.

“What’s this?” Edi asks.

“You’re going on a trip,” Lugano smirks. “You need money on a trip, don’t you?”

Edi glances at Luis, who’s already tucking the money in his pocket.

“Take it like that. It’s a trip,” Lugano says. “The business thing is just a small part of that, you’re just delivering a thing, you don’t need to think about it at all. Enjoy the rest.”

“What’s the rest?”

Lugano smiles and looks at Luis, who returns the smile.

“You’ll see.”

~ ~ ~

The airport is buzzing. The more steps Edi takes on this journey, the more he understands that everything that looks impossible and utterly mad is actually the exact opposite. Picking the busiest, most chaotic airport, where it’s impossible to keep track of everything, no matter how hard the authorities try. And the effort itself is already questionable.

As soon as they enter the arrival hall, keeping a safe distance from each other, a girl runs up to Luis and throws her arms around his neck, like they are lovers that were kept apart for too long. It takes a second look for Edi to realize that Luis actually doesn’t know her, that he’s seeing her for the first time in his life, and this is all just a ploy. Luis gives him a quick nod, looking pointedly in the direction of another girl waiting by one of the advertisement boards.

She gives Edi a bright smile and walks up to him slowly, wrapping her arms around him. She smells heavily of flowers and musk, like she has poured an entire bottle of perfume over her body. It’s intoxicating, and slightly repulsive.

“I’m Marta,” she whispers to him. “If anyone asks.”

Her eyes dart around quickly, like she wants to make sure everyone ate up the show, and then she grabs Edi’s hand. Her bangle bracelet digs in his wrist bone almost painfully.

Her car - or the car she is driving, which doesn’t have to be hers at all - is an inconspicuous one, exactly one a woman would drive around the city. There are even some shiny trinkets dangling from the rear-view mirror. Edi lingers for a while, supposing she will open the trunk.

“Better keep it close,” she says, confirming his suspicion that she’s fully aware of what she’s doing, and that she’s not doing it for the first time. “You don’t want to let it out of your sight.”

Edi nods and throws the bag under his feet. Marta starts the car and drives out of the airport parking lot. The further they are, the easier it is to breathe, although his heart is still beating madly in his chest. The girl, on the contrary, looks dead calm, like she does this every day.

“We have to take a different route than them,” she says. “And take a bit longer. Yepes can’t be in two places at the same time, and until he brings his lazy ass to the hotel… But you’re kidding me!”

There’s a long line of traffic in front of them.

“Well, like this, Yepes will probably have to wait for us,” she sighs and reaches for her handbag, pulling out a bottle of lipgloss and putting it on, looking in the rear-view mirror. “Chill,” she says then and slaps Edi’s knee with a perfectly manicured hand.

Edi gives her a half-hearted smile.

“You know, if you try to see cops everywhere, chances are once they will really appear,” Marta says. “It’s like with ghosts.”

“You see ghosts?” Edi asks.

“You don’t, where you come from? This whole city is haunted as hell,” she says, and he can’t guess if she’s making fun of him or if she’s dead serious. “I’m a bit into that stuff, so… Here we go!”

The traffic starts to move again and she makes a rather dangerous maneuver to avoid getting stuck behind a truck, ignoring the loud honking behind them.

~ ~ ~

They stop at the back of a small hotel in a side alley. It doesn’t look fancy at all, more like something students or backpackers would book for a night or two.

Marta gets out of the car, looks around quickly and then nods. She locks the car after he gets out, and immediately grabs his hand again.

“I’m doing the talking,” she says. “You just stand there and look pretty.”

The automatic door opens and they walk inside a small hall with generic decor, anonymous paintings and plaster statues that are supposed to make this place look more like a reputable hotel.

“I have a reservation,” Marta says, leaning on the reception desk.

The receptionist looks at her. “Name?”

“Marta Arroyo.”

The receptionist looks into the computer, then nods and hands her the key.

“Second floor, to the left, Miss Arroyo.”

“Thanks,” Marta says. “And… my uncle is going to bring me some things in a bit. Could you send him up when he comes?”

“Sure, Miss.”

“Fine,” Marta grins. “Thanks!”

The room is a rather old-fashioned one, pretending to be nicer than it actually is, same as the hall. It smells faintly of some cleaning product.

“And now we wait,” Marta sighs. “As I know Yepes, you can as well have a nap in the meanwhile.”

“You know him well?”

She laughs shortly. “If you know one of them, you know all of them. Expensive shoes, golden watches, more money than they could ever spend, but it’s never enough. They think they are gods, but one small slight offends them so much they shoot your brains out,” she says and looks at him. “Now I ruined your nap, didn’t I?”

Edi shakes his head. He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep even if she told him Yepes was a saint. 

While he just sits on the small sofa in the corner of the room, watching the door, Marta looks like she doesn’t know what it means to be bored. She checks her appearance in the mirror, smells the soap in the bathroom, opens the wardrobe, plays with the bedside lamp, flips through the selection of bad quality bagged tea lying next to the kettle, and complains about the loud fan on the ceiling.

When someone knocks on the door, despite being scared out of his mind, Edi is almost grateful for the person delivering him from watching her.

“Who is it?” Marta asks.

“Your uncle, Martita.”

“Motherfucker,” Marta mutters under her breath before opening the door.

Yepes matches Marta’s description to the smallest of details, from the expensive shoes to the golden watch. He looks at Edi and smirks.

“Next time, Lugano will send me a first grader,” he says. “So, what do you have for me, boy?”

Edi decides not to look while Yepes inspects the contents of his luggage. He prefers not to know what was inside. He’s got an idea, anyway.

“Well, half of deal done,” Yepes grins. “I’ll get you the rest tomorrow. How do the fuckers at the reception say it? Enjoy your stay.”

He walks out of the door, where two men dressed in equally tacky clothes are waiting. Then he turns around.

“Won’t you give your uncle a kiss, Martita?” he asks.

“No,” Marta says calmly and bangs the door in his face, like Yepes is not a feared drug lord, but an annoying high school boy. “And now?” she asks then.

Edi frowns. “Now?”

Marta laughs shortly. “I forgot it was your first time,” she says and turns to face him. “You know, I’m not here just to take you to Yepes and back to the airport. I’m here to do whatever you want to do with me.”

She stares at him for a while, hoping that he will catch on. The thing is, his brain is kind of refusing to process the information.

“I could literally not be more explicit!” she exclaims then.

“I… get it,” Edi manages. “I just… don’t know…”

“You got some money, didn’t you?” she grins. “Well, you should take that money, take me to a club, buy me some drinks, and then we can go back to the hotel and… see what happens.”

She looks so desperate and exasperated by him just sitting there that he almost feels guilty. “Fine,” he says, although he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to.

“So, where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You’re the boss.”

Marta starts to laugh. “I’m the boss!” she repeats. “I like that! Okay, the boss says we should eat something. I’m starving.”

~ ~ ~

The club she takes him to is louder and fancier than he expected. He would never go to such place, if he didn’t have an envelope full of money designated literally to be spent here.

Marta finds them a table and orders drinks, already resigned to the idea of being the one in charge of everything.

“Are you kidding me?” she says in annoyance, looking towards the entrance.

There are Luis and the girl from the airport standing there.

The girl drops Luis at the bar and walks over to their table when Marta gestures wildly at her.

“What the hell, Paulina? We’re not supposed to be at the same place!”

Paulina rolls her eyes. “What’s wrong about being in one bar? There’s no better place, I’m not going to settle for less. Especially when I have to fuck _that_. You got the better thing out of the bag, so don’t take my drinks from me at least!” she says and looks at Edi. “Why the hell are you blushing, that was a compliment.”

“Because he has manners, unlike you,” Marta says, grinning at Luis, who comes to them with the drinks. “Shall we leave the boys together for a moment? I got something to tell you.”

Edi’s got the impression that the only one unaware of this being an attempt at saving Paulina from Luis for at least a while is Luis, who is apparently enjoying himself more than any of them. 

“How many times have you done this?” Edi asks him when the girls move to the bar.

Luis shrugs. “Five, six…” he says. “It’s easy money.”

Edi gives him an incredulous look. “You call that easy?”

Luis laughs. “Well, it’s even easier for you.”

“Why?”

“Look at yourself!” Luis says. “I would maybe suspect you of smuggling holy texts out of the Vatican, but not drugs from Colombia.”

He shakes his head and reaches for his drink.

“You get the girls, too, so…”

“The girls who only fuck you because they get paid for it.”

Luis looks at him like he is completely mad. “And who the hell cares?” he asks.

“I do.”

Luis looks like he’s quite fed up with him already. “Fine. So don’t fuck her. Tell her good night and sleep in the armchair. Or send her to me, I can manage two.”

Edi gets up without a word, and walks towards the bar where the girls are chatting. He grabs Marta’s arm and pulls her away. She gives him a bewildered look, but follows him without a word.

He lets go of her arm outside, actually, he doesn’t even look at her, and starts in the direction of the bridge he remembers they came from.

“Okay, slow down… or stop, dammit!” she calls after him.

He stops and waits until she catches up with him. Only then he realizes how high are the heels she is wearing.

“Will you finally tell me what happened?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“Let me guess. It was something he said.”

Edi doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t really need him to.

“Something he said about me.”

“Yeah.”

Marta smiles. “I don’t give a damn what he thinks about me, you know?” she says. “If he thinks I’m a whore, fine, I think he’s an ugly moron with teeth only slightly smaller than his ego.”

Edi smiles as well. She lays a hand on his shoulder to keep her balance, and takes off her shoes. Then she leans over the railing and looks at the shoes like she’s trying to decide whether to throw them down between the passing cars, or not.

“If you’re not in it for the money, or the fun…” she says. “Then?”

“Because I have to.”

She nods thoughtfully and looks at the car lights. “There’s no way out, you know that?”

“There is,” Edi whispers. “Just no _good_ way out.”

Marta smiles bitterly. “That’s true.”

For a while, they just look at the cars. It feels surreal, a moment completely torn out of context of who they are and what they are doing here.

“Okay, so you’re not up for dancing and drinking, and probably not… for the other kind of fun,” she states then and looks at him.

“Not really.”

“Fine,” she says. “Then let’s go look for ghosts!”

~ ~ ~

There is a strange sound that wakes him up. He looks around, and for a moment has to wreck his brain over where he is.

The sound is the crappy, old hairdryer from the bathroom. It gets silent after some time, and a moment later, Marta walks out of the bathroom, still messing with her hair.

“I look like shit,” she mumbles and checks her phone. “I feel like shit, too.”

“I don’t know whose idea it was to run around Bogotá until three in the morning, looking for ghosts,” Edi says.

She laughs. “I’ll call Yepes. He’s supposed to make sure the stuff will be ready in my car before we go to the airport.”

~ ~ ~

The airport hall is full of people when they walk in, and no one is looking at them, but every play needs to go on until the curtain falls, so Edi obediently holds Marta’s hand. He doesn’t even look for Luis. He doesn’t care if he’s there or not.

She checks the boards and smiles. “Well… that’s it,” she says and wraps her arms around his neck. “Sorry we didn’t see ghosts.”

“I don’t know if we should be sorry about that.”

“Maybe not,” she says and gives him a sticky kiss on the cheek. “You were… lovely. Take care.”

She stands at the barrier until she sees him pass the security check. Then she waves at him for the last time and disappears in the crowd.


	7. Chapter 7

Paolo is leaning over the car, playing with the keys. Edi has never thought he would feel that way, but it actually feels relieving to see a familiar face.

“Look at you, you survived,” Paolo smirks.

“Wasn’t I supposed to?” Edi asks and gets in the car.

“I don’t know who had a mental breakdown before leaving, but it sure wasn’t me,” Paolo makes a face. “Wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Edi shrugs. “It’s weird that it’s almost good, it’s almost fun, but then it’s not,” he says.

“Yes. That’s the adrenaline. You feel immortal, and then you realize that you’re actually not,” Paolo smiles. “But it’s that thing that drives you. How else would soldiers go into a battle? Your brain has to switch off to some point.” 

“I’ve always had trouble doing that,” Edi says. “To switch off my brain.”

“Yeah, that’s where people like Luis have an advantage,” Paolo says. “Can’t switch off what you don’t have.”

“Don’t even get me started on Luis,” Edi mumbles.

“Well, you can’t always like your boss, or your business partners. If you haven’t noticed yet, I absolutely hate Lugano’s guts,” Paolo says.

“Then why do you keep working for him?”

“Because you either work for Lugano, or you work against him, and I don’t recommend the latter.”

It’s strange that even though he was gone just for a couple days, the streets suddenly look different to him. Like he suddenly doesn’t belong here anymore, like he’s somehow outgrown it. This part of the town suddenly feels more familiar than it should, and he almost thinks he will not recognize the street where he lives.

~ ~ ~

Lugano is waiting at his office in the bar. Edi looks around. He’s glad that Luis isn’t there.

“How was the trip?” he asks.

Edi shrugs. He doesn’t really have words to describe it. It doesn’t even feel real yet, or anymore.

“You got a hold of it, right? There’s nothing complicated to it,” he says and throws an envelope on the table. “For your services.”

Edi gives him a confused look. “I thought…”

“Look, technically, I could have you do this for free until the end of your life,” Lugano says. “But I’m not like that. I believe that good work should be rewarded, same as mistakes should be punished.”

Edi pulls the envelope closer hesitantly, like it could explode. He doesn’t have the courage to look inside yet, but the weight of it gives him a good hint already.

“Well, that’s all,” Lugano shrugs. “Until next time.”

Edi walks down the stairs, where Paolo is filling an ashtray like there’s no tomorrow.

“Done?” he asks.

Edi nods and sits next to him at the bar. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Nothing,” Paolo says. “Go on with your life.”

Edi chuckles humorlessly. “What life?”

“Everyone has a life apart from this one,” Paolo says. “Well, maybe I don’t, but that’s just me.”

“Everyone? Even Lugano?”

“As far as I know, he’s got a wife and two kids, so… yeah. I guess he goes home, has dinner, kisses his kids goodnight and fucks his wife later, like any other guy.”

Edi nods slowly. It makes sense, after all.

“Have you ever done this?” he asks then.

“Eh… no. Not this way,” Paolo says. “Look at me. If I was boarding a plane with a herd of dinosaurs, who do you think they would pick for a security check?”

“Not a dinosaur.”

Paolo looks at him, and then they start to laugh and don’t stop for good five minutes.

~ ~ ~

When he gets off the plane in Bogotá for the second time, he wonders if he will ever be able to distinguish the trips. It’s the same scenario, it feels almost like a déja-vu, except that this girl is blonde and uses different perfume.

“I’m Victoria,” she says.

He wonders if he will remember all the names, too.

It’s a different hotel, but that’s the only difference. The room is small and the equipment has seen better days, but it’s at least relatively clean. It smells faintly of some detergent that the sheets have been washed in. There is an old television mounted on the wall, a small table with a kettle, two cups and a couple teabags on a plastic plate. Next to it, there is a telephone and a couple of laminated cards with safety instructions. When Victoria switches on the lamp on the nightstand, it starts to buzz softly.

The flight was delayed and it’s fairly late when Yepes leaves. It’s raining behind the window, and all Edi wants is to sleep. The girl doesn’t look like she minds staying at the hotel either. Since they’ve arrived, they barely spoke to each other. She’s not the naturally talkative, all over the place type like Marta was, and once she realizes that he doesn’t want anything from her, it looks like she’s content to just wait the whole thing out in silence.

When the door flies open, Edi is half-asleep on the sofa. Two men walk inside the room, and behind them, a very angry Yepes.

One of the men grabs Edi’s hand and pulls him off the sofa. The acquired reflex that makes him relax his wrist probably saves him from getting it broken.

“Where is Luis?” Yepes asks.

“I don’t know anything about Luis!” Edi objects. “I haven’t even talked to him today! He left before us!”

“That’s true!” Victoria says, curled up against the headboard of the bed. “He left with Patricia, I saw them!”

She digs in her handbag frantically, finding her phone and dialing a number. Yepes gives her a skeptical look and turns back to Edi, like he doesn’t expect anything to come out of her actions.

“The problem is that while they may have left before you, they never made it to the hotel,” he says.

Edi looks up at him, cradling his bruised wrist. “I don’t know where he is!”

“That’s too bad, because he’s got my money and I want it,” Yepes says. “So you should pray my people find him, or else no one will find _you_ ever again!”

He heads to the door, followed by the two men. On the doorstep, he turns to Victoria, who is desperately dialing the same number over and over again.

“If you manage to reach your friend, let the guys know,” he says. “They’ll be right outside.”

The girl is now crying openly, and the movements she’s repeating over and over to dial the number are becoming more frantic.

For the lack of better ideas, Edi reaches for his phone as well, but then realizes he doesn’t have Luis’ number anyway, and even if he did, he doubts that Luis would pick up.

He comes across Martín’s number, and something in him makes him push the button and call him.

He’s clearly not thinking straight anymore.

~ ~ ~

Yepes returns more furious than before, and also slightly inebriated. It’s not that obvious yet, but Edi can pick up at the hints, and he decides that it’s not good. Not good at all.

“No need to try anymore,” Yepes says, glancing at Victoria. “We found your friend, and her car. What’s missing is my money, and that little fucker, do you get what I’m saying?”

Victoria clearly gets it immediately, because before Edi can even process Yepes’ words, she lurches forward, the flight instinct kicking in faster than Edi’s ever seen it in anyone. The two men at the door stop her and throw her back so fast it looks like they are some kind of a bouncy wall. Edi barely catches her, stumbling back and catching himself on the sofa behind him.

Yepes pulls out his gun and runs a finger under his nose, a gesture Edi remembers from Paolo, and he realizes that alcohol isn’t the only thing driving Yepes’ anger at the moment.

“If Lugano can send over fuckers to kill my people, I should return the favor,” he growls.

Victoria shrieks, even though the gun is not pressed against her head at the moment. She holds onto him, desperately clutching the fabric of his sleeves, and as absurd as it is, because he can’t protect her from anything, it’s the last thing that’s keeping him from completely losing it.

He pulls her closer to him, screws his eyes shut and waits.

A sharp, electronic sound makes him open his eyes again. Yepes pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at the display. Then he walks out of the room without a word.

The door is muffling the sounds enough for Edi not to make out the words, although it might not be just the door. His mind is completely scrambled.

Yepes opens the door then, but doesn’t walk in. He still looks furious, but somehow more in his right mind.

“Tell Lugano that we’re done,” he says. “Colombia is closed to him now.”

Then he beckons the two men and walks out of the room.

Victoria covers her face with her hands, curls up on the floor and starts sobbing hysterically. Edi crawls back to the sofa, but he doesn’t find the strength in him to actually climb on it. He just leans his back against it and closes his eyes, praying for his heart not to jump out of his chest.

~ ~ ~

When the door flies open again, Edi doesn’t care anymore, even if it’s the Devil himself. He hasn’t moved from the spot since Yepes left with his suite.

When the person finally enters his field of vision, he realizes that it’s not the Devil. It’s Marta, dressed in a short satin dress and leather jacket. She looks at the other girl, who is systematically emptying the minibar, and sighs.

“Get out of here, I’ll take care of this,” she says.

“But…”

“Look at yourself,” Marta rolls her eyes. “You wouldn’t even find the airport tomorrow.”

Victoria gets up and sways a little.

“Give me your keys,” Marta says. “You have a taxi downstairs, I told him to wait.”

Victoria pulls out the car keys and hands them to her shakily. “But Yepes…”

“Yepes is totally smashed. When I was leaving the club, he was trying to shoot down the chandelier,” Marta says. “ Go home, Vicky.”

She waits until the door closes behind the girl. Then she approaches Edi carefully, like he’s a bomb about to explode, crouches down on the floor next to him and pats his knee tentatively.

“Hey, you’re fine,” she smiles shakily. “Not missing anything. Your head is still where it’s supposed to be.”

When she doesn’t get a reaction out of him, she gets up again and takes off her jacket, throwing it on the armchair. She throws the empty bottles in the bin, and switches on the kettle.

“Mint or chamomile?” she asks.

Edi lifts his head and looks at her. Nothing is making sense to him anymore. “What?”

“Chamomile, then,” she says, rips the paper envelope open and takes out the teabag. “Don’t fucking sit there like this, I hear Colombian madhouses are shit. You don’t want to get in there. Get off that floor or I swear to God I’ll slap you. Because that’s the last resort, and I’m running out of ideas.”

Edi scrambles off the floor and curls up on the sofa instead.

“Better,” she says and switches on the TV. He knows that he won’t be able to focus on anything, but the white noise really helps in a way.

She puts the cup on the table in front of him. Then she reaches for her handbag and fishes out a plastic bottle with pills. She taps it on her palm until a pill falls out. She hesitates for a while and then taps it again, adding another one.

“Here,” she says, and holds the open palm under his nose.

Edi looks at the pills and shakes his head. Marta rolls her eyes.

“I’m not trying to kill you, I’m trying to help you,” she says. “What sounds better, replaying all of that in your head all night, or actually getting some sleep? Come on. At least one.”

Since a certain evening, Edi is mistrustful of everything that people promise will make him feel better, but the idea of forgetting about everything for a while is too tempting. He grabs one of the pills and reaches for the cup. The tea is still a bit too hot, but he doesn’t mind. He swallows the pill and makes a face, putting the cup back on the table.

“What?” Marta asks.

“I hate chamomile.”

“You should have said mint, then,” Marta says. “Now suffer.”

“Why are you here?” Edi asks.

“I owe you,” she says. “For opening my eyes.”

“How?”

“I’ve made a decision last time,” she says. “On that bridge, you know. When you told me there was no good way out. So I told myself, if I can’t get out, I’ll get deeper in. And then up.”

She looks at the TV, where some talk show is going on, and then back at him.

“You should go to bed, because in about ten minutes, you won’t be able to get there yourself, and I’m sure as hell not dragging you there,” she says and pulls off the bed cover. “I’ll tell you a bedtime story if you’re nice.”

“About ghosts?” Edi asks.

“Sure,” Marta grins. “I don’t know any other stories.”

~ ~ ~

When he wakes up, Marta is sitting on the edge of the bed. She’s wearing different clothes, and there’s also a bag on the sofa she didn’t have the night before. He realizes that she must have gone get it at some point during the night.

“What is…”

“I’m going with you,” she says. “You didn’t really think I was doing this just because I have a soft heart, right?”

If he’s to be honest, he didn’t really care about why she was doing it.

“Then why?”

“My boss is shit,” she smiles. “I want to meet yours. And you’re going to introduce me.”

“You want to work for Lugano?” Edi blinks. “Why?”

“Well, for instance, I don’t think he solves problems by shooting at chandeliers. I told you I wanted to go up. And I can’t do it here, with that idiot who’s already missed the boat.” She leans closer to him and smiles, and in that moment, he realizes that the crazy girl in flimsy dresses was nothing but a persona. “Yepes got mad because he didn’t get his money. But why? He doesn’t get money, he doesn’t send Lugano the goods, so what’s the problem?”

“That he needed the money because it’s now missing somewhere he had taken it from before,” Edi says.

Marta gives him a praising smile. “When a ship is sinking, you have to jump out,” she says. “This one already has a large hole in it.”

~ ~ ~

When he sits in the office above the bar, his eyes slide down to Lugano’s hands. He indeed has a wedding ring on his finger.

“Sorry about that,” Lugano says. “That’s all I can say.”

For some reason, Edi knows that he means it, and he has no reason to question it, actually. No one could predict what would happen. 

“I’m supposed to tell you that he’s done with you,” Edi mumbles. “Yepes.”

Lugano rolls his eyes. “Yeah, he’s already told me, I don’t know why he needs to repeat himself.”

“It was you who called him,” Edi states. “That’s why he didn’t kill me.”

“Luis was my responsibility, not yours,” Lugano says. “That’s what I told him. If he wanted to set things straight, then with me, not you.”

“But how did you know?”

Lugano smirks. “Someone came to yell at me. I thought you had sent him.”

Edi blinks. “I…” _Martín._ “I hadn’t.”

“Well, he likes you, obviously.”

“He doesn’t,” Edi mumbles.

It’s absurd, really, that he’s discussing his relationship issues with Lugano.

“Whether he does or doesn’t, you should have some manners and at least thank him,” Lugano says. “He’s the reason why you’re sitting here now.”

Edi nods slowly and then looks at Lugano again. “And… Luis?”

“What about Luis?”

“I mean… if you know what happened to him.”

“As far as I know, nothing’s happened to him yet,” Lugano says. “When I find him, it will be a whole different story.”

It’s the _when_ used instead of _if_ that makes a shiver go down Edi’s spine.

“So you think he betrayed you.”

“I wouldn’t call that betrayal,” Lugano says and reaches for his mate. “If he worked with the cops, or with any of my rivals, that would be betrayal.”

“You think he didn’t do that?”

“No. Boy had a lot of money in his bag, and he thought that he knew enough to run off with it. That’s not betrayal, that’s stupidity.”

“You don’t even sound surprised,” Edi says.

“No. At some point, you get the feeling that you’ve heard all and seen all.”

Edi just keeps looking at him. He doesn’t know, he never got that feeling. He sees new things every day, and each of them shocks him. But then, he probably has plenty of time to get to that point.

“There were boys like this before Luis, there will be boys like this after him,” Lugano says calmly. “Will you be one of them? Maybe. What do I know. What do you know.”

Edi feels like he should say that he won’t be one of them, but then realizes that Lugano is right. What does he know?

“Take a breather now,” Lugano says. “This business has its risks, but I wouldn’t wish what happened to you on anyone.”

When Edi lingers, Lugano raises his brows. “Anything else?”

“Someone would like to talk to you,” Edi says and opens the door.

When Marta walks in, Lugano folds his arms and gives them both an amused look.

“It seems like I forgot to clarify that you weren’t supposed to take Yepes’ girls home with you,” he says.

“I’m here because I don’t want to be Yepes’ girl anymore,” Marta says and gives him a charming smile. “Maybe I could be yours.”

Lugano immediately switches back to his business mode, like he senses that this is more than a child’s play. “That depends on what you have to offer. If anything.”

“I spent the last few weeks finding out all of Yepes’ secrets, down to the size of his underwear. I think I do have something interesting to tell you.”

“Well, the size of Yepes’ underwear truly doesn’t interest me,” Lugano smirks. “But I’ll hear the rest.”

~ ~ ~

Martín looks up from his work when Edi walks in, but doesn’t say anything, and Edi desperately doesn’t want to be here. He’s only mustered the courage to come because he reckons that Lugano was right, he should thank Martín.

“Thank you,” he says instead of greeting him, just because he wants it to be over. _Here, I said it, I can go now._

Martín raises his brows. “What for?”

“You went to yell at Lugano.”

Martín shrugs. “I might have raised my voice.”

Edi laughs shortly. He can imagine the scene vividly. And he can’t understand how Martín is still alive.

“What did he tell you?”

“To stop yelling,” Martín smirks. “And that he would take care of it. I see that he did.”

Edi nods slowly. “If I knew you were going to do this, I wouldn’t have called you,” he says then.

Martín looks at him like Edi is a puzzle he can’t put together for the love of God. “What did you imagine I would do?”

Edi shrugs. “Nothing. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Oh,” Martín says, and there’s a subtle hint of amusement in his voice. “So you meant it as a goodbye. Sorry, I wasn’t ready for that.”

He bangs the hood shut and grabs a rag to wipe his hands on. Edi watches him quietly.

“You were right,” he says then. “When you said there was always a choice, even if it was something bad and something even worse. But I’m a coward. I can’t choose the worse.”

Martín throws the rag on the table and looks at him. “Now you’re actually at least making sense,” he says. “Unlike before.”

“I didn’t know that about myself before.”

“Coward, I can accept that,” Martín says. “Better than an unapologetic bastard.”

“But it doesn’t change anything,” Edi shrugs. “It doesn’t change what I do.”

“No, it doesn’t. And I still hate it, and I’ll always hate it,” Martín sighs. “But you know, I have one big flaw. I can’t stay mad at anyone for a long time. And trust me, I’m trying.”

“I wanted to tell you why I had to do it,” Edi says and lowers his eyes. “I just… I thought it would be safer if you didn’t know. And then… I made it sound like I was mad at you, but I was only mad at myself.”

There’s a long moment of silence between them, longer than Edi remembers they would ever have. Then Martín leans over the side of the car and looks at him. “So I was the last person you wanted to hear before dying?”

Edi’s body moves before his brain actually decides what he wants to do, if he wants to run away or punch Martín in the face, but then Martín open his arms and Edi falls right in them. And finally, the floodgate opens, and everything he wasn’t able to get out in the hotel room in Bogotá just pours out, and he thinks he’s never going to stop crying.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [ibarbourou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibarbourou/pseuds/ibarbourou) Log in to view. 




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